Career
Banfield was recruited from North Ringwood made his way into the Essendon team having played under-19s football at the club Brisbane picked up Banfield for their first ever VFL season in 1987 and he took part in their inaugural appearance in Round 1 starting in the back pocket. He only missed two games that year collecting a career best 197 kicks, 93 handballs and kicking 9 goals.
After three seasons in Brisbane where he played a total of 45 games, Banfield played league football in his third state, South Australia, by joining West Adelaide.
This form continued into the finals but was halted in the Grand Final against North Adelaide. Banfield continued to play for West Adelaide under the coaching of Neil Kerley in 1992 and 1993, but his team failed to recapture their late 1991 form and missed the finals in both years, finishing 6th and 8th respectively.
Following the 1993 SANFL season, Peter Banfield retired from league football having played a total of 56 VFL games for Essendon and Brisbane from 1984-1989 and 95 SANFL games for West Adelaide from 1990-1993. As a coach, Banfield steered ACT club Ainslie to three successive premierships from 1994 to 1996.
This earned him the job of Street Kilda"s assistant coach, firstly to Stan Alves and then to Tim Watson.
He crossed to Melbourne in 2001 for a two-year stint as Neale Daniher"s assistant. The 2003 and 2004 season were spent as coach of the Bendigo Bombers and he then was put in charge of the Casey Scorpions before resigning in 2007.
