The match, attended by 100,007 spectators, was won by Hawthorn by a margin of 15 points, marking the club's eleventh VFL/AFL premiership victory.

Hawthorn then had a few chances to extend the margin, however a rushed behind and missed opportunities by Shaun Burgoyne and Isaac Smith, had little influence on the scoreboard.

The two teams then exchanged behinds with Rioli and Brad Sewell for Hawthorn and Matthew Pavlich and Fyfe for Fremantle all scoring.

Fremantle replied with behinds to Stephen Hill and Michael Barlow before Walters kicked his second goal in the 25th minute, reducing the margin back to three points.

Additional goals to Luke Breust and Bradley Hill and behinds from Roughead and Lance Franklin stretched the lead to 31 points.

During Hawthorn's period of dominance, Brian Lake, a recently recruited defender from the Western Bulldogs, was instrumental in shutting down Fremantle's attacks, taking two critical contested marks from opposing kicks.

However, four attempts in the final ten minutes ended with behinds, to Hayden Ballantyne, Pavlich, Ryan Crowley and one rushed, and Hawthorn held on to win by 15 points.

[7] It was the first grand final which Champion Data assessed to have been won by the poorer side on the day, as Fremantle was left to rue the opportunities it had been unable to convert.

[9] Lake subsequently accepted a four-match suspension for deliberately elbowing opponent Michael Walters in the jaw during the third quarter, making him the first Norm Smith Medalist to have committed a reportable offence during a grand final.

Typically prolific ball-winner Sam Mitchell had only 12 disposals for the game (compared to 33 and 34 disposals in Hawthorn's 2014 and 2015 premierships, respectively), but this was a plan Mitchell formulated to negate the effectiveness of Fremantle's 211-centimetre (6 ft 11 in) ruckman Aaron Sandilands – who had 44 hitouts as part of Fremantle's overall 55–27 hitout advantage, but without damaging effect.

Mitchell's strategy was publicly revealed ten years later in his 2023 Australian Football Hall of Fame induction speech by teammate Luke Hodge.In the 2013 Grand Final, we knew Sandilands was going to get the hit-out advantage.

So Mitch went into the leadership group, put his hand up and said: "I’m happy to be the selfless guinea pig and just sit in Sandilands’ hit zone and fight like hell to stop them from winning it."

The third offence of misconduct against Fremantle's Nick Suban was referred directly to the Tribunal for assessment, which determined the incident was improper but not grievous.