Port Adelaide club champion count is a four-man field with a finish that reflects disappointing end to AFL season
PORT Adelaide’s club champion count on Friday is down to a four-man field. Will Robbie Gray collect his fourth John Cahill medal or will another standout add their name for the first time?
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HISTORY is created — or repeated — with Port Adelaide’s club champion count for the John Cahill Medal on Friday night.
And the most significant part of the count will be noting the voting trends in the Power’s last seven games of the AFL season when a promising campaign tumbled to disappointment with just one win in seven games.
Midfielder-forward Robbie Gray is a strong contender to claim his fourth John Cahill Medal, joining premiership duo Kane Cornes and Warren Tredrea as four-time winners of the club’s highest individual award since Port Adelaide rose to the AFL in 1997.
Vice-captain Ollie Wines — the “future captain” — could win his first club title after topping the Power’s polling in the AFL’s major player trophy, the Brownlow Medal.
Utility Justin Westhoff, who celebrated his 32nd birthday this week with a one-year contract extension, also is fancied to become the oldest player to win the John Cahill Medal. He would take this claim to fame from Tredrea who was two months’ short of his 31st birthday when he won his fourth club title in 2009.
Brendon Lade, in 2006, and inaugural captain Gavin Wanganeen, in 2003, also were 30 when they won their only John Cahill Medal honour.
Wingman Jared Polec, who has agreed to a five-year deal with North Melbourne, could offer a throwback to Port Adelaide’s SANFL era if he takes the John Cahill Medal as a parting gesture at Alberton.
The last time a player used the best-and-fairest count to bid farewell to Port Adelaide en route to a traditional Melbourne club was at the end of 1985 when Craig Bradley won his third club title before joining VFL powerhouse Carlton.
These four are the stand-outs of Port Adelaide’s disappointing season — and the four the umpires acknowledged in the Brownlow Medal count in which the Power’s top-four votegetters were Wines (14), Gray (eight), Polec (seven) and Westhoff (five).
The outsider is defender Tom Jonas, who is handicapped by having played 18 of 22 games in a season in which he was sidelined by hamstring and knee injuries.
If the coaches are better judges than the umpires, Port Adelaide’s coaching staff — and that of the opposition — preferred Gray ahead of Wines in the AFL Coaches’ Association awards.
Notable in the coaches’ medal is how the voting dried up after Round 14 when Port Adelaide beat Melbourne at Adelaide Oval to achieve a top-four ranking with a 9-4 record. At that stage Wines (38) and Gray (34) were on the AFL Coaches’ Association award leaderboard.
In the next nine games — in which the Power won three and lost six to fall to 10th — both fell away, pointing to the John Cahill Medal count having a tight finish but not a frenetic spill of votes in the last third of the count.
Port Adelaide’s coaches assess each player after each game assigning him a score of 0-5.
Gray, 30, won the John Cahill Medal in 2014, 2015 and 2016 and ranked fourth last season. He is the only Port Adelaide player to hold All-Australian status this year.
The count, at the Adelaide Convention Centre, will begin at 7pm.
JOHN CAHILL MEDAL WINNERS
1997: Darren Mead
1998: Adam Kingsley
1999: Stephen Paxman
2000: Brett Montgomery
2001: Warren Tredrea
2002: Matthew Primus
2003: Gavin Wanganeen
2004: Warren Tredrea
2005: Warren Tredrea
2006: Brendon Lade
2007: Kane Cornes
2008: Kane Cornes
2009: Warren Tredrea
2010: Kane Cornes
2011: Travis Boak & Jackson Trengove
2012: Kane Cornes
2013: Chad Wingard
2014: Robbie Gray
2015: Robbie Gray
2016: Robbie Gray
2017: Paddy Ryder
2018: ????
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au