Brownlow Medal farce confirms what AFL fans have known for years

OPINION

Brisbane Lions star Lachie Neale claimed his second Brownlow Medal on Monday night, but the result has left a bitter taste in a lot of AFL followers’ mouths.

Or it would have if the award, widely considered the top individual honour in the game, held the same level of prestige as it did in years past.

Die-hard footy fans have been saying it for years, but the quirks of the Brownlow’s format make it a preposterous way to determine the champion player of the season.

And the core issue is that the voting is entrusted to the umpires.

Week in, week out, we are left scratching our heads at the decision-making of our game’s officials.

The AFL wants us to ignore it, and the players and coaches know better than to say it out loud, but the overall standard of umpiring has been on the slide for decades.

That fact has been brought to light on countless occasions this year, and it even cost one team – the Adelaide Crows – a finals berth.

Why, then, should we trust the umps’ judgement when it comes to naming the competition’s best and fairest player?

You only have to look at the discrepancies between the coaches’ votes and the Brownlow Medal tallies to see how out-of-touch the umpires are with modern footy.

According to a post from the 7AFL Twitter handle after Monday’s count, there were 17 instances where a player polled three Brownlow votes but none from the coaches.

There were also 20 cases where a player received a perfect 10 from the coaches but didn’t register a single Brownlow vote.

Players who polled:

– Three Brownlow votes in a game but no coaches votes
– 10 coaches votes in a game but no Brownlow votes

(via @sirswampthing) #Brownlow pic.twitter.com/9gQSNTzLeg

— 7AFL (@7AFL) September 25, 2023

It is little wonder, then, that the prestige meter for the AFL’s top individual honours is shifting more and more towards the AFLCA Champion Player of the Year (voted on by the coaches) and the Leigh Matthews Trophy (voted on by the players).

This year, those awards were won by Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters and the Western Bulldogs’ Marcus Bontempelli, respectively.

Neale did not make the top four in either poll, and he wasn’t even among the top 10 for the latter.

This is not to rag on the Brisbane Lions gun, who was arguably stiff to finish behind Carlton skipper Patrick Cripps in last year’s Brownlow count.

If you look back through the list of Brownlow winners in the past two or three decades, you will find plenty of anomalies.

Gavin Wanganeen (1993), Shane Woewodin (2000), Jimmy Bartel (2007), Adam Cooney (2008), Matt Priddis (2014) – none were tipped to win it.

And perhaps that is part of the charm of Brownlow night: that the quirks of the game-by-game voting system allow for the odd bolt from the blue.

But should such variables be in play when judging the fairest and best player of the AFL season?

These days, the Brownlow Medal should be viewed for what it is: a night of faux glamour that serves mainly to stimulate the Australian sports betting industry.

If not for the hype generated by online bookmakers, footy media and the AFL itself, the award might already have faded into insignificance by now.

And if something doesn’t change, it will only be a matter of time before the football world stops taking notice.

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