Has an AFL game ever ended 51-46?
It has. 51-46 has been a AFL final 6 times in 16,622 games. The first was Essendon beat Fitzroy on June 2, 1906; the latest was Footscray beat Gold Coast on July 23, 2020.
That makes 51-46 the 342nd most common final score out of 6,607 that have ever occurred in AFL. One point away, 52-46 has happened 2 times and 51-47 has happened 1 times. At one point the score disappeared for 75 years, between 1937 and 2012.