Gary Ablett of Geelong breaks the tackle of Brent Stanton of Essendon during the AFL Round 10 match between the Essendon Bombers and the Geelong Cats at the Docklands Stadium. GSP Images
Gary Ablett won his third consecutive Leigh Matthews Trophy last week, and while the award is becoming increasingly prestigious amongst the AFL community, isn’t the timing of the vote like announcing the Norm Smith Medal at three-quarter time in the Grand Final?
The award, which is voted entirely by AFL players, is intended to decide who is the league’s Most Valuable Player (or the MVP) for a particular season.
Due to the fact it is voted upon by the players, the honour obviously has some prestige.
The upsurge in interest in the Leigh Matthews Trophy has occurred (not only thanks to Foxtel) due to the problem the AFL has with their major individual honour, the Brownlow medal.
For a long time, debate has raged about the relevance of the Brownlow, as that award is decided by the umpires and it seems sometimes they get it wrong (the most famous, recent example was Shane Woewodin in 2000, although it should be noted he had a pretty good season that year, but probably not the best in the league).
The umpires, who are actually employed to apply the laws of the game rather than ascertain the best 3 players afield every week, seem to already have enough on their plate with annual rule changes and angry crowds making their occupation an uneasy one.
Nevertheless, despite numerous duplicate awards emerging from the media or coaches, nothing has rivalled the Brownlow, except perhaps for the Leigh Matthews Trophy.
Last week’s announcement at the Crown Palladium in Melbourne was no doubt a great evening for Ablett, who becomes the first player to ever claim the honour three times, let alone three times consecutively.
Ablett won the Trophy with 688 votes, just over a hundred from his nearest rival Collingwood’s Dane Swan (584), with Chris Judd (546) third, Nick Riewoldt (343) fourth and Joel Selwood (285) fifth.
The award was voted by all of the AFL players just after Round 22 when the regular season was completed, prior to the finals.
But while there’s no doubting Ablett as a modern-day great, it is surely hard to declare him 2009’s most valuable player when the 2009 season isn’t actually over yet.
Indeed, St Kilda’s Riewoldt, who was named All-Australian captain earlier this week, has had a stellar 2009, taking his Saints to the minor premiership and anyone could come up with a strong case to argue he deserves to be this season’s MVP.
And Leigh Matthews Trophy runner-up Dane Swan has been brilliant in 2009, collecting more disposals than any other player in the competition and helping the Pies into the Preliminary Final.
All these players will have a big say as to the destination of the premiership cup this season and their influence or value in the finals should be considered.
Nevertheless, it is hard to argue with the actual players’ opinions and margin of Ablett’s victory suggests it’s unanimous, but why aren’t finals included?
After all, September is built up as the time when the cream rises to the top. Indeed, it’s the time when the best players show their mettle and value.
As aforementioned, such a scenario is like awarding the Norm Smith Medal at three-quarter time in the Grand Final. It seems absurd!
Interestingly, the Brownlow Medal does the same thing, by only including the 22 regular season rounds and it does so to ensure equality and fairness amongst all players from all clubs.
But there’s a tendency to award these honours to players from the best clubs, so I could be radical and argue why doesn’t the Brownlow include finals, but perhaps that’s a tad too radical.
But with the Leigh Matthews Trophy, why aren’t the finals taken into consideration? Why is it, like the Brownlow, an award for 22 rounds of footy, rather than 26? And why is there no AFL award for the best player for the whole, entire season?
Surely finals should be taken into consideration, especially when you’re trying to decide who is the league’s most valuable player. Indeed, there’s no better time to prove your value, then in the finals.
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