Another year, another comically high number of votes to the winner.
Ollie Wines collected a record-equalling 36 votes en route to winning the Brownlow. One might think that he must have played the season to end all seasons, blown all before him off the park and is already the undisputed GOAT, right?
Nope. Because Wines was one of a record four people to chalk up 30-plus votes. Only twice before had two players polled 30-plus votes in the same season – Dane Swan and Sam Mitchell in 2011, and Dustin Martin and Patrick Dangerfield in 2017.
The VFL switched to a 22-round season in 1970. Excluding the 1976 and 1977 seasons, when the voting was different, the first player to cross 30 votes was Greg Williams in 1994 when he and Peter Matera ran a two-horse race for the Brownlow. Robert Harvey was next when he blew all before him with 32 votes to beat Nathan Buckley by eight. Then Chris Judd got 30 in 2004.
Note the names: Williams, Harvey, Judd. Players who belong in the absolute elite ranks of the game. None of them managed a 36-vote season. None of them even managed a 33-vote season like Marcus Bontempelli. Williams and Judd couldn’t even manage to best Clayton Oliver’s 31.
(Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
You would say it started to get a bit ridiculous in 2011 when Dane Swan – who, to be fair was an excellent footballer – picked up 34 votes. Then Danger got 35, Dusty got 36. Lachie Neale would have slaughtered all records if given a 22-round season. In 17 rounds he still picked up 31 votes. He would have translated that total to 40 in 22-round season.
The pool of players to score any votes in a season is getting smaller each year, as is the number of players to score the full three votes at least once in a season, yet we are seeing a greater number of players ticking 20 votes or more in a campaign.
The votes are being concentrated among fewer and fewer.
None of the above would surprise anyone, nor would the revelation that midfielders are just hoovering up the votes. It’s a midfielders award now.
Nonetheless it’s a fact that would be vehemently rejected and denied by the AFL and the umpires. The voting system or current voting trends by umpires doesn’t simply favour midfielders to win the medal but favours them to the point that other key positional players who are best on ground or have had super consistent seasons are being ignored to the point of embarrassment.
Let’s have a quick look at some of the votes All Australian key positional players picked up in 2021.
Steven May: one vote
The All Australian fullback got a single vote. One single vote. In Round 1. He didn’t get a vote for the rest of the season. Amazing.
Bailey Dale: three votes.
That vaunted Bulldogs defence gets no respect from umpires.
Tom Papley: four votes
He scored the second-highest number of goals by a small forward. Still, that’s better than Charlie Cameron, who got one vote for his 47 goals.
Jake Lever: five votes
He got no votes in the second half of the season.
Toby Greene: six votes
He kicked 45 goals this year and somehow managed to go nearly the whole second half of the season without a vote. That game in which he kicked five against Collingwood? Two votes. Callum Ward got three votes for 37 possessions (21 handballs), fewer tackles than Greene and no goals.
Daniel Rich: six votes
He went 14 rounds without a vote, all during Brisbane’s solid middle-season ladder climb.
Aliir Aliir: seven votes
The intercept king. He fed a ridiculous amount of ball to Wines. He had four votes by Round 7 and didn’t pick up a vote again until a best-on-ground performance in Round 20.
Tom Stewart: eight votes
A man considered so important to Geelong that they were out of contention the moment he was injured got eight votes.
Max Gawn: 16 votes
Gawn was the only key position All Australian player to get more than ten votes.
The injustices could be debated all day, but it’s time to pivot towards a solution. How can we create a best and fairest award that gives everyone a fair shake?
(Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
I don’t have time to argue the positives and negatives of a variety of voting systems – I hope you introduce such a thread in the comments, and I’ll gladly respond. Instead I’ll put forward what I think is the best idea and let you have at it in the comments.
What we need is an enhanced version of the Norm Smith Medal voting system.
The Norm Smith Medal is a contest key positional players have a legitimately strong chance of winning. While midfielders stand the most chance of winning this medal, it is not anywhere near skewed to the extent that it is in the Brownlow. Why? Because it’s a blind vote. It’s not done on stats, it’s not done by committee and, most importantly, it’s not done by three men sitting in a room with a stats page in their hands playing favourites.
Five esteemed people within AFL circles are picked to hand out votes in a 3-2-1 system, and those votes are then tallied up. The player with the most votes wins. In the event of a tie, a countback is done. Simple.
The beauty of it is that rarely are the five panellists actually near each other during the match. Whether by design or by accident they tend to be apart and can formulate their own opinions on the match.
Its current flaw is that the majority of panel positions each year tend to be occupied by media people. I’m not suggesting the media pundits don’t get it right, but they undeniably do have an agenda at times with certain favourite players at the expense of other players without the same profile, whose glorious grand final performances are at risk of getting lost in the limelight.
AFL umpire Ray Chamberlain. (Photo: Scott Barbour/Getty Images)
There would need to be a diverse panel covering all elements of the game.
It’s also easy for the Norm Smith voting to be conducted as a one-off match. How would this be implemented throughout the season?
I would suggest that the Brownlow adopts the Norm Smith voting model with the following adaptations:
- the panel is composed of one media representative, one AFL official, the two competing coaches and an umpire from the match representing the three umpires officiating that day;
- the AFL official is the chair in so far as they have the responsibility to collect the votes within ten minutes of the full-time siren, which will make sure it’s harder for all – though not necessarily the coaches – to confer with the stats sheet before making a decision;
- the competing coaches cannot vote for their own players – their three votes must be given to the opposition;
- the umpire nominated to be on the panel speaks collectively for the umpires, not for themselves, and the AFL official will confer with the other two umpires to validate the votes provided by the voting umpire;
- voting is blind. All five participants must not meet to determine votes; and
- tied voting in matches need not be split by a countback.
With more people voting and the maximum votes being increased from three to 15, there is significantly more opportunity for more players outside of the midfielders to pick up some votes, thus spreading around the voting to more players who had good matches. And we’ve seen this in the Norm Smith voting. Even when a midfielder wins it, a key position player has generally picked up second place.
Getting 15 votes is rare. Only one player has done it: Dustin Martin – in fact, freakishly, he did it twice. The current voting system means it’s too easy to hand a single three-vote award to the same player eight to ten times a year.
And what of suspended players? My proposed voting system would mean that a winning player can tally upwards of or exceeding 100 votes, which means there are plenty of votes that can be used as a penalty system for suspended players.
I would still include any suspended player, and they would be docked a suitably harsh 15 points per suspended round, 15 being the maximum votes a player can pick up in any given match. It means that the philosophy of ‘fairest’ is still preserved while also acknowledging that if they can overcome their handicap, the philosophy of being the ‘best’ is also maintained.
We used to have a Brownlow Medal that recognised the performances of many players throughout the year in an even way.
Sound good? I’m looking forward to seeing your comments.
Mark Ovens
Guest
I don't think coach should necessarily give opposition player 3 votes
Doctor Rotcod
Guest
Disagree about Priddis being undeserving and measured purely off the stats. The stats that he excelled in were these. He was fifth in the disposal count,fourth in the tackle count, third in contested possessions, fourth in clearances,third in handballs. And he was blond.
Scott
Guest
This is a good idea. Ive wrote in a comment above something very similar to this before reading your comment. My proposal would be the same as yours with all umpires giving a personal 3-2-1 on a piece of paper just as the game finishes (before checking stats and talking with each other) then those votes are tallied up and if any players are equal, the leading umpire makes the call on which of those players get the higher vote. It would still mean the Brownlow is a 3-2-1 system, but less biased, and still with a touch of unpredictability. Your system would actually be fairer, it’s similar to some of the betting sites predictors which have a far more accurate leaderboard. They could say the players and votes the opposite way around on Brownlow night as well to add to the suspense. M…….Bontempelli……………2……….point 5 votes
Scott
Guest
That’s an excellent idea. I had always assumed they did something like that anyway, but im pretty sure they don’t. Even when I thought that’s how they did it, I thought the change in the voting patterns had coincided with the quality of the big screens. It’s very easy to see the stats and the fantasy scores across the bottom of the screen now. Either way, it should be an enforced rule that the umps can’t check stats or use their phones until the votes are given. I still think due to the big screens though, that the Brownlow will be this way forever now. Perhaps a fairer system would be that each umpire hands in their individual votes on a piece of paper, before talking with one another. Then you would get a similar blind unbiased result, similar to the authors suggestion in the article. All 6 give a 3-2-1 each and the leading umpire, makes the decision on any ties
andyfnq
Roar Rookie
Sounds like a good system, I'm up for it :thumbup:
nics
Roar Rookie
What it really shows is that Adam Goodes was a heck of a player given the position he played.
RT
Roar Rookie
The article would be better served if it called out specific cases where the author thinks the umpire got it wrong. Sure, Wines may not be the GOAT but was he or was he not the best on ground for his 3-vote games this year? Likewise the other 30+ vote getters. I know one thing. If umpires did start giving left of field votes, people would be up in arms every time an expected vote didn't go their way (especially the sad ones who take their bets too seriously). Perhaps the umpires have an unconscious bias to avoid such scrutiny. Anyway, we have enough media awards, Players Association awards and coaches awards so this should remain an umpires' award, not something else. Someone else mentioned mutiple umpires collaborating might make the status quo more likely which was a great point. Perhaps umpires could independently vote (without stats) and then votes get collated and divvied up to the nearest half vote. So instead of 3, 2, 1 you could a game with get 2.5, 1.5, 1, 0,5, 0.5. You could even include the 4 boundary umpires (perhaps with less weighting on them) as they may offer a different perspective. It could make the count more interesting - imagine someone needing a 3 in the last game but they end up with a 2.5. Whatever, just keep it as an umpires' award.
The Crowd
Guest
Splitting it into three carries dangers that they will wedge midfielders into the forward category....we could see it become like the AA, where they pick a full forward, full back, ruckman, small forward, half back and then flood the team with onballers.
The Crowd
Guest
Yup. Agree entirely.
Marty
Roar Rookie
The fact that May received 1 vote for the season sums up pretty well how accurate a reflection the Brownlow is of who the most valuable players in the comp are. It’s the same with the AA team these days, they pick 12 midfielders and find spots for them. It’s a bit of fun at the start of GF week, that’s about it.
Brendon the 1st
Roar Rookie
The umpires lack the bigger picture, they vote for who they see the most, which is why the coaches award is a better award. They shouldn't allow umps to look at stats if they actually do that, I think back to the Priddis and Tom Mitchell awards and they were won purely off the stat sheet, I'm asking why they didn't have more influence given they'd had so much of the ball? Ditto Dangerfield. The fact Buddy never won one is evidence that there's something wrong with this award. More notice needs to be taken off contested marking and goals, not just possessions.
XI
Roar Guru
Could just get rid of it? Just retire the award. Have an award each for most goals, most disposals and most intercepts/spoils.
The Crowd
Guest
Yeah, one out of five will hardly be too much of an influence though, no? I put them in there because they are surprisingly more likely to pick a key position player than a midfielder at the norm smith. Though, I freely concede that they will pick their favourite instead of the worthy. Perhaps you are right.
The PTA has disbanded
Guest
It would be nice if different positions get a look in but the most impact generally comes from the midfielders. Impact is a relative term though, isn't it? Some see impact as the get and go from the ruck with the quick handball or the decisive delivery into the forward 50. Others see impact as the forwards taking the pack mark in a overly congested forward 50, or people like Tom Stewart and Allir Allir taking crucial intercept marks and them being the actual players to start counter attacks that the midfielders take credit for. Patrick Dangerfield doesn't get the ball if not for Tom Stewart. Clayton Oliver isn't able to effect a quick play up the middle of the field if it wasn't for Steven May bringing the contested ball to ground. I think it's telling that the game still places a high value on key positional players at the trade table precisely because of their impact. Cameron, Gawn, Rance, Lynch, Franklin, Daniher, even Travis Cloke...they don't come cheap. If they didn't have the crucial impact on a game, the market wouldn't pay them that much.
Gary
Guest
Remember it is supposed to be “fairest” and best. Maybe that explains the low votes for Greene. But I think the Brownlow should be split into three. Brownlow Mid, Brownlow Forward, Brownlow Defense. Use the same basic system but vote are cast for the three areas on the ground.
Peter85
Roar Rookie
I don't think the system is broken, merely the bias is put onto the players who do the most things, regardless of overall impact. It doesn't matter which sport you look at, there are different awards and flaws in each method. The AFL Coaches Association has each coach giving a 5-4-3-2-1 for each game, maximum of 10 votes and its leaderboard this year is very similar to the Brownlow. Despite the different perspective you go back to 2005 and 2004 to get a non midfielder/ruck winning the award. The AFL Players Association has each player give a 3-2-1 on the seasons efforts based on a shortlist of players (3 nominated from each club by the players). As already mentioned this is also a midfielders award, in 40 years, 6 forwards and 1 defender has won the award. NRL - game by game media award NBA - seasons efforts 5-4-3-2-1 for a selected group of people (100 vote givers from memory) It would be nice if different positions get a look in but the most impact generally comes from the midfielders. If you are not a KPP the better you are, the more likely you will be a midfielder. For me, the reform that is needed is the weighting of particular awards in peoples mind of greatness and the visibility of the different types of awards and how these can be manipulated by narratives.
dab
Roar Rookie
every close observer of the game understands ... Well that excludes most of the umpires!
Liam
Guest
I don't mind your method, but I do not want the media playing a role in the voting. They already play too much a of a role in shaping perception of this sport already.
The Crowd
Guest
Yet every close observer of the game understands how critical key defenders, ruckmen and key forwards are to success. Exactly. People who say otherwise aren't watching the game. If Geelong had invested in a good ruckman, or treated the role seriously, then they probably would have won a flag or two in the past 10 years. Richmond managed to pick up Nankervis as a bargain buy and he was a HUGE difference to the club in 2017. Richmond also paid enormous sums to bring Tom Lynch to the club, and it paid off. Geelong have crippled themselves in the draft to secure Jeremy Cameron. Brisbane paid big coin for Joe Daniher. Western Bulldogs picked up Stefan Martin because of the importance of a good ruckman. Likewise GWS keeping Mumford on. Key position players are absolutely indispensible. You will NOT win premierships without them. Stack the deck in the midfield as much as you like, but they aren't the ones winning the comp for the team. Yet these key roles are ignored by the umpires.
Willie
Roar Rookie
I agree with your assessment that its more than ever a midfielders award. Yet every close observer of the game understands how critical key defenders, ruckmen and key forwards are to success. I suspect one possible explanation lies in the fact that field umpires award the votes. Umpires are always close to the action, but that might be part of the problem. They see the game up close. But does this give them perspective? I wonder if their constantly microscopic view of the game causes them to miss important contributions off the ball? Just a thought.