Has an AFL game ever ended 71-53?
It has. 71-53 has been a AFL final 5 times in 16,622 games. The first was Richmond beat Fitzroy on August 18, 1917; the latest was Richmond beat Hawthorn on July 31, 2015.
That makes 71-53 the 589th most common final score out of 6,607 that have ever occurred in AFL. One point away, 72-53 has happened 3 times and 71-54 has happened 3 times. At one point the score disappeared for 66 years, between 1949 and 2015.