Has an AFL game ever ended 53-45?
Yes. AFL has seen a final score of 53-45 3 times. It first happened on June 22, 1912, when Collingwood beat Melbourne, and most recently on May 7, 1960, when Footscray beat Hawthorn.
That makes 53-45 the 1534th most common final score out of 6,607 that have ever occurred in AFL. One point away, 54-45 has happened 3 times and 53-46 has happened 2 times. At one point the score disappeared for 45 years, between 1915 and 1960.