Nat Fyfe finishes second in 2014 Brownlow count, Fremantle midfielder was ineligible
THE cruellest club in football narrowly avoided gaining its third member on Monday night, with Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe finishing second.
THE cruellest club in football narrowly avoided gaining its third member on Monday night.
The then-leading but ineligible Nat Fyfe was overtaken with the second-final lot of votes awarded in Monday night’s thrilling count.
It saved embarrassment for the AFL, but talk will still simmer about the controversial match-review panel system and Brownlow eligibility criteria.
The Fremantle star’s first suspension was the subject of hot debate all year.
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Fyfe looked set to join Western Bulldogs legend Chris Grant (1997) and North Melbourne ruckman Corey McKernan (1996) as players to miss out on football’s top award because of on-field sanctions — until West Coast ball magnet Matt Priddis trumped him with a pair of Round 23 votes.
Fyfe, 22, finished with 25 votes, despite being ruled ineligible in Round 2. He controversially copped a two-match sanction for an accidental head-clash, which split open Gold Coaster Michael Rischitelli’s head and left the Docker dazed.
Fyfe, who did not attend the function, copped another two-game ban in Round 21 after striking Hawthorn’s Jordan Lewis off the ball.
Several influential AFL figures, including Kevin Bartlett, have called for the league to scrap the “fairest” component of the top individual honour, saying a player deserves to win the medal if he can poll the most votes and win games.
Former Dockers coach Chris Connolly said Fyfe should have remained in contention after his Rischitelli hit. “We are not sure whether the MRP always gets it right, so to take the Brownlow off a player like that is unfair,” he said.
AFL football operations manager Mark Evans has repeatedly flagged changes to the match-review panel system, which could see lower-end incidents punished with fines from next season.
Fyfe was this month crowned winner of the AFL MVP, which is voted by the players.
He collected one vote in the Round 2 game and polled votes in three of his next four matches. He took until Round 12 to poll his first three-vote game and then flew home, overtaking Gary Ablett (22) in Round 19 to take the lead.
Fyfe pocketed five best-on-grounds in the second half of the season as the Dockers soared into the top four.
The midfield jet his month admitted he had to alter his approach and described the Lewis hit as “clumsy”
“The way I attack the footy, I often do get blokes high, so I’ll do a bit of study over the off-season because I can’t be sitting on the sidelines,” he said.
“The ruling got me on the first one and it was clumsiness with the second one.”
Fyfe has increased his Brownlow votes tally in all five AFL seasons, now boasting 75 from 83 home-and-away games.
Originally published as Nat Fyfe finishes second in 2014 Brownlow count, Fremantle midfielder was ineligible
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