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Patrick Cripps is the 2022 AFL Brownlow Medallist – and he has instantly become one of the most controversial winners in the award’s history.
The Carlton captain polled 29 votes to finish one ahead of Brisbane star and 2020 winner Lachie Neale, polling three votes in the Blues’ heartbreaking Round 23 loss to Collingwood to take the lead with the last votes read on the night.
However, fans were quick to take to social media to question Cripps’ win, having famously escaped a two-week suspension for a bump that left another Lion in Callum Ah Chee concussed in Round 21, that would have seen him miss the Magpies match – and render him ineligible for the award.
Cripps’ ban overturn saw the Blues take the case to the AFL Appeals Board after the Tribunal had upheld the sanction, with the board determining that Cripps’ action in contesting the ball against Ah Chee had been reasonable under the circumstances.
>> 2022 Brownlow Medal: Every vote, final leaderboard
Unsurprisingly, the public outcry that followed that announcement six weeks ago was repeated as Cripps claimed his first Brownlow Medal, which included an outpouring of sympathy for Neale, who would have claimed the gong if not for the overturn.
Cripps’ win was quick to have an ‘asterisk’ affixed to it by many – that became part of footy vernacular in 2020, when fans claimed the same about Richmond’s premiership win due to the unprecedented impact on the season wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, it wasn’t all outrage.
In the eyes of many, the biggest winner of the night was Blues legal counsel Christopher Townshend QC, a member of the club’s board of directors and the architect of Cripps’ successful appeal.
And praise came thick and fast – only some of it sarcastic.
Of course, conspiracy theories also came out in full force, as they do with even the most minute of Brownlow controversies.
Chief among the claims were that the AFL deliberately allowed Cripps to escape sanction for the Ah Chee bump in order to not leave him ineligible, knowing he was a chance to win.
That’s despite him a) being behind Neale at the conclusion of Round 23, making it impossible for him to win if the suspension had been upheld; and b) that the AFL voiced its displeasure in no uncertain terms with its Appeals Board ruling at the time.
Fans were also quick to express sympathy for former North Melbourne ruckman Corey McKernan and Western Bulldogs champion Chris Grant, the only two previous tally-leaders ineligible to win the Brownlow due to suspension.
McKernan tied with James Hird and Michael Voss – Cripps’ coach – in 1996, while Grant ‘won’ outright just a year later, only for neither to head home with ‘Charlie’.
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The footy world has since made regular pleas for the league to change the Brownlow’s suspension criteria – the award is given to the AFL’s ‘fairest and best’ player, with the ‘fairest’ component determined by suspensions – and the Cripps controversy made another surge of support for the pair inevitable.
Adding to the controversy was the harrowing interview with rugby league champion Mario Fenech, documenting his battle with CTE and early-onset dementia after repeated head knocks in his playing days, that Channel 7 broadcast immediately following the Brownlow.
The irony of Cripps’ win after leaving Ah Chee concussed, over which he missed the next two rounds, wasn’t missed.
Of course, not everyone was up in arms over Cripps’ suspension – with many praising a ‘worthy winner’, praising his post-Brownlow interview in which he documented his work to overcome a stutter when speaking to the media, and his efforts in previous seasons where he single-handedly dragged a struggling Blues team in his wake.
While others were content to gleefully make fun of Carlton for having missed the finals despite the Brownlow Medallist – plus Coleman Medal winner Charlie Curnow -on the books.
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