Gold Coast skipper Gary Ablett deserves a third Brownlow Medal, writes Mark Robinson
THE sentiment for Gary Ablett comes because all of us have ridden the joys and disappointment on Brownlow Medal night.
Mark Robinson
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THE sentiment for Gary Ablett comes because all of us have ridden the joys and disappointment on Brownlow Medal night.
AFL is a team sport and the focus soon enough will be on how Gold Coast can perform without him — yet Ablett holds a special place in our hearts. When you’re the best player in the competition, that happens.
When you leave Geelong for a start-up club, rake in millions, and still earn the accolade as the game’s club’s best player, that’s when respect meets genius.
There’s a mystique about Gaz. We think we know him, but we don’t really.
What we do know is he plays the sport better than anyone, perhaps ever.
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And it’s why when Brownlow Medal night arrives, the spotlight is always on him.
It’s fair, isn’t it, that the best player is rewarded with the sport’s most coveted award?
It often doesn’t play out that way.
Ablett launched himself on the competition in 2007 and arguably has been the best player in the AFL for six of the past seven years.
That first year, 2007, the medal was won by Ablett’s teammate Jimmy Bartel. They sat together that night, two men with boyish looks who smirked their way through half the evening. Ablett went in favourite and would win the Cats’ best and fairest by almost 200 votes. But Bartel won the Brownlow with 29 votes and a forlorn Ablett polled 20.
That’s 0-1.
Ablett was third in 2008, polling 22 votes behind winner Adam Cooney on 24. Surprise winner? Maybe. Ablett was the favourite, but at the end the focus was more on Tiger favourite Matthew Richardson than either of Cooney or Ablett. That’s 0-2.
Order was restored in 2009. Ablett polled 30 votes, streeted the field and, for the first time, he was being compared to his famous father. That’s 1-2.
Clearly, the best player in the game, Ablett was favourite (with Collingwood’s Dane Swan) to go back-to-back Brownlows in 2010. Chris Judd beat Ablett into second spot and Swan was third. Swan was unlucky not to win because he had a freak season and Ablett was unlucky because Judd escaped suspension for a backhand elbow to Matthew Pavlich’s face, which cut him open. That’s 1-3.
Could Gaz take the genius to the Gold Coast? In 2011, he took the cash no worries, but in doing so, he knew the quest for Brownlow greatness would be parked. He finished with 23 votes behind Swan’s record tally of 34. That’s 1-4.
In 2012, with the Suns still struggling, Ablett polled 24 votes behind Bomber Jobe Watson’s 30. The Dons skipper was deserving but Ablett’s team won just three games. That’s 1-5.
In 2013, with the Suns winning eight games, Ablett returned as pre-Brownlow favourite and rightfully saluted. He won by a single vote from Geelong’s Joel Selwood. Selwood would’ve been a deserving winner, but not quite like Gaza was.
That’s 2-5.
Arguably, the scorecard could’ve been 4-3.
A bit of luck here and there and surely if he had stayed at Geelong and not travelled north, Ablett would be the most esteemed and officially recognised footballer in the history of the game.
Into 2014, and Ablett’s season has come to an inglorious end.
He’s still the best player in the game and a third Brownlow Medal seemed to be a matter of course, and, let’s not forget, his one-time easybeats are shooting for a finals footy debut.
He could still win the medal, but it’s unlikely with seven matches to be played.
That pains all of us, except perhaps for Scott Pendlebury or Josh Kennedy — or even Nathan Fyfe if he wins and loses it because of suspension.
The Brownlow Medal is important because it is celebrated in the present and defined by its past.
We have three triple Brownlow Medallists — Ian Stewart, Haydn Bunton, Dick Reynolds and Bobby Skilton — and they are an exalted group. History tells us of their greatness because it is recorded by the year.
Triple Brownlow medallist Gary Ablett just sounds right. More than that, he thoroughly deserves it.
On Brownlow Medal night this year, the fascination with Ablett will be more intense than any other year.
Imagine if he won it, having played just 14 and a half games. “Greatness’’ wouldn’t quite capture it.
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