Brownlow Medal 2020: AFL pulls off strangest vote count ever
Jack Newnes’ matchwinning after-the-siren kick against Fremantle was the AFL’s biggest “jump-off-the-couch” moment in 2020. Why then, as Jon Ralph writes, was it overlooked for Goal of the Year?
AFL
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The AFL seemed to borrow from MacGyver as it fixed a host of COVID-related crises this year, holding together the season with some duct tape, lateral thinking and dashings of luck.
Footy’s strangest Brownlow Medal followed that familiar theme on Monday night as Brisbane’s Lachie Neale strolled to the easiest of victories.
And yet like the inventions of TV’s action-adventure hero it still found a way to get the job done.
Catch Fox Footy’s Grand Final Week coverage on Kayo. Stream all the latest news and insight right up until first bounce plus halftime and full-time analysis from the Fox Footy commentary team. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
It overcame players in six different venues as well as absence of a red carpet and grandeur of a Crown Palladium to make a decent fist of what should be the AFL’s night of nights.
The suspicion had been the event might be mutton dressed up as lamb, a glorified Zoom call with a trackies-and-ugg boots sensibility.
Yet to broadcaster Seven’s credit it looked slick and pacy as the split-screen MegaWall concept it has been so obsessed by in recent years finally justified its existence.
Unfortunately all the production values cannot manufacture tension, and Lachie Neale’s 2020 brand of dominance totally sucked any drama from the count itself.
Way too early the AFL players on screen began scrolling through their phones distractedly and it was hard not to do the same at home.
None of that should detract from the utter dominance of Neale’s victory.
His 31 votes might have beaten Dustin Martin’s Brownlow record of 35 votes over a full season, a fitting tribute to a year of sheer dominance.
Neale’s path from the small country town of Kybybolite on the SA-Victoria border via Fremantle to Brisbane might have foundered if he did not have mighty ambitions.
But he wasn’t content with stardom in Nat Fyfe’s shadows, he wanted to be THE MAN.
He found that stage at Brisbane where if anything he became more prolific, more damaging.
It is a credit to him but also Brisbane and Chris Fagan to turn him into the kind of relentless matchwinner instead of retaining the “accumulator” tag that comes with a negative connotation.
A player who had 289 kicks and 448 handballs in 2016 this year went at a one-to-one ratio with a dozen home-and-away goals to boot — he can truly claim to be lethal now.
Every time a challenger loomed Neale found another gear after surging from the gates with 12 of 15 possible votes by Round 5, a nine-vote lead by Round 13 and an eventual 10-vote victory.
Again it was a pure midfielder’s medal, with Max Gawn (13th) Toby Greene (14th), Tom Hawkins (16th), Charlie Dixon (28th) the only exceptions out of the top 30.
Of the All Australian back six Brad Sheppard was voteless, Harris Andrews polled four votes, Luke Ryan six, Nick Haynes four, Darcy Moore six and Darcy Byrne-Jones two.
As always on Brownlow Medal night the spontaneous moments provided many of the highlights.
MORE AFL:
Richmond v Geelong: Mick Malthouse reveals the six players who could decide the 2020 AFL grand final
The Tackle: Mark Robinson’s likes and dislikes from AFL preliminary final week
Like Matt Rowell’s voice cracking with excitement in an interview after a trio of best-afield contests by Round 4, which had him co-leader alongside Neale.
Only moments earlier Marcus Bontempelli had given him a congratulatory slap on the back and he looked almost fit to explode with pride.
Sixteen years after Nick Riewoldt’s SCG mark of a generation didn’t even win that year’s best mark Sam Walsh’s back-with-the-flight mark was rewarded as the year’s best.
Argue all you want about other contenders, but at least the game’s most courageous act — going where angels fear to tread — was valued for once over the more spectacular.
Jack Newnes’ after-the-siren matchwinner against Fremantle was nutted by Josh Daicos for goal of the year in a decision that was hard to fathom.
It was not only the goal of the year given the stakes involved, it was footy’s biggest jump-off-the-couch moment this year.
But if he was robbed the Daicos matchwinner against Sydney on a slippery SCG wasn’t far behind and certainly continued the kids-on-the-rise theme.
Neale’s win may not have been the sexiest of victories after the rock-star successes of Dustin Martin or Nathan Fyfe and recent nailbiting counts.
Yet in a year of so many compromises and asterisks, footy could not have found a worthier champion for 2020.
Originally published as Brownlow Medal 2020: AFL pulls off strangest vote count ever