1878 SAFA season

The 1878 South Australian Football Association season was the 2nd season of the top-level Australian rules football competition in South Australia.
In its first season, won the premiership, going through the year undefeated - 8 wins and 4 draws.
The SAFA competition was contested by seven teams with the admission of newly formed club, after Bankers and Woodville folded at the end of 1877.
Each team of twenty men were scheduled to play each other twice this season, the first time a standardised fixture was in place. Clubs also fielded second twentys and these games were also advertised on a weekly basis along with the first twenty games.

Pre season

The SAFA clubs played inter club matches on 4 May.
An additional pre season game was played between some South Australian and Victorian residents who live in Adelaide.

SAFA Senior Clubs 1878 Season

Club	Colours	Home Ground	Captain	Comments
Adelaide	Black, Red	Old Adelaide Ground, North Adelaide	Dalton	Played majority of home games at Adelaide Oval
Kensington	Scarlet White	Kensington Oval	Milne
Norwood	Dark blue Red	East Park Lands, Adelaide	J.R.Osborne	New club formed from leading players from Woodville
Port Adelaide	Magneta White	Glanville Hall Estate	W. Fletcher
South Adelaide	Navy Blue White	South Terrace, Adelaide	G.D.Kennedy
South Park	Light Blue White	South Park Lands, Adelaide	J.H.Sinclair
Victorian	Orange Black	Montefiore Hill, North Adelaide	G.E.Downs

Premiership matches are those that took place after 11 May.

Round 7

Norwood advertised a full practice match on their ground in the afternoon.

Round 15

Round 16

Victorian had kicked a goal, but it was deleted after a head count revealed they had 21 men on the ground at the time.

The mistake being unintentional when they took on two substitutes at the start of the game and one of their players Knill arrived late. After the headcount and the dispute which followed, which lasted half a hour, Knill was removed from the field and play continued.
At a South Australian Football Association Committee meeting held on evening of 6th September 1878 it was decided that the match played between the South Adelaide and Victorian Clubs last Saturday should be declared a win for the former.

Ladder

Notes: Port Adelaide and Kensington and Victorian and South Park did not play return matches.
South Adelaide were awarded a win following a disputed draw with Victoria

Other Matches

Some of the Clubs took their annual trips into the country.
Norwoods defeated the Gawler seven goads to one;
Adelaide and Gawler, two goals each, played a draw;
Kensingtons scored two goals to Kapunda's one;
South Parks beat Riverton three goals to, nil, and were defeated by Willunga two goals to one.
The Victorians visited Melbourne and were beaten twice by the Melbourne Club and once by Geelong, but were successful in the game
played with the Ballarat Club.
There has been a large increase in the number of junior Clubs.