How North’s blueprint stole Rory Sloane’s Brownlow Medal

We all know that on September 25, it will be Dustin Martin who has the AFL’s most prestigious individual honour, the Brownlow Medal, dangling around his neck.

The ineligibility of 2016 Brownlow Medallist Patrick Dangerfield means that no other player is likely to come close to Martin, who may poll a record amount of votes.

But if we look back to Round 6, it wasn’t Dusty or Danger set to run away with the award, but a certain superstar Adelaide Crows midfielder.

Rory Sloane started the season in blistering, career-best form. Putting a quiet Round 1 game behind him – still managing 24 disposals mind you – the 27-year-old was untouchable in the next five games, helping to cement Adelaide in top spot and immediately becoming the favourite to take home ‘Charlie’.

Through the next five rounds, most of which were convincing wins for the Crows, the brutish midfielder amassed 30.6 disposals per game, as well as 10.8 tackles, while contributing eight goals in total to the scoreboard.

He was a threat all over the ground, causing opposition teams serious headaches. So who could stop Sloane? Was he the centrepiece of Adelaide’s premiership hopes?

Cue Sam Gibson.

The Adelaide Crows headed down to Tasmania on a chilly afternoon to take on a lacklustre North Melbourne. The Crows were naturally red-hot favourites, and Sloane was expected to continue his dominant run.

But it was soon apparent that Roos coach Brad Scott had assigned evergreen midfielder Gibson to a tight, run-with role alongside Sloane.

He did a magnificent job, with Sloane having little impact on the contest, managing 18 disposals and a measly four tackles. North cruised to a 59-point victory, dealing Adelaide their first loss.

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Every star has an off game, and it’s common for teams to pay close attention to the opposition’s most damaging midfielder, but North had created a blueprint for the rest of the competition – Sloane can’t shake a hard tag.

The following week, Melbourne took a leaf out of North’s book and sent Bernie Vince to follow Sloane. Where a superstar like Sloane would normally bounce back after a poor performance, he was again rarely sighted, recording 11 disposals and only four clearances.

The Demons handed the Crows their second successive loss, setting off alarm bells in the Adelaide coaching box, as it appeared opposition clubs had discovered their kryptonite. Stop Sloane, and you stop the Crows.

Not surprisingly, Sloane temporarily returned to form. Over the next two weeks, Adelaide were back on the winner’s list, their star midfielder shaking off his taggers and backing up a 31-disposal effort against Brisbane with a 30-disposal, 13-tackle effort against Fremantle.

Sloane was subsequently blazing away in the Brownlow predictions once again, and many thought his two-game slump was just a blip on the radar.

How badly we were mistaken.

From Rounds 11 to 17, teams persisted with tagging Sloane, negating his impact on the contest. He failed to record more than 24 possessions in any of the six outings, scoring only three goals, and never recording more than eight tackles.

Sloane hit rock bottom in Round 17, recording eight disposals and no marks against Melbourne. He dramatically fell from Brownlow contention and was an easy target for every opposition team he faced.

Those teams have the Roos to thank, who showed the whole competition how to stop the talented Crow, and robbed him of a potential Brownlow medal, as well as an All Australian spot.

Thankfully, it didn’t derail Adelaide’s premiership run, the Crows entering the finals atop the AFL ladder, having remodelled their gameplan to not be so reliant on Sloane.

Matt Crouch had a breakout season and stepped up in Sloane’s absence, while Hugh Greenwood provided the brutal tackling strength that Sloane was no longer bringing.

To be fair, Rory Sloane did finish the season with four standout performances in his last six games, and probably did enough across the whole season to deserve an All Australia nod – possibly at the expense of Dylan Shiel.

If he can recover quickly enough from his appendix surgery, Sloane remains a deadly weapon in Adelaide’s finals campaign.