Tom Mitchell won the Brownlow Medal in the same fashion he plays his footy, writes Jon Ralph
TOM Mitchell will never have the hipster swagger of Nathan Fyfe or the bad boy mystique of Dustin Martin. But he won Monday’s Brownlow Medal in the same way he plays his footy — by out grinding his opponents.
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TOM Mitchell will never have the hipster swagger of Nathan Fyfe or the bad boy mystique of Dustin Martin.
He isn’t a warrior poet like Collingwood’s cultured ruckman Brodie Grundy.
Yet the essence of this great and unique game has always been about winning the pill.
All the AFL’s greats started their journey tossing the ball into the air in the backyard and trying to come back with it before their mate or sibling.
Heaven help anyone who played against Mitchell in those backyard days.
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On Monday night the hottest of Brownlow favourites held off a mid-count surge from Steele Sidebottom that injected some necessary tension into what shaped as an early procession.
The Pies midfielder was three votes clear of Mitchell in Round 12 and the whiff of a genuine Brownlow boilover was in the air.
Yet the Hawks star won this medal grinding over the top of a rival in the same relentless, extraordinarily consistent way he goes about his football.
It might not be as “sexy” a win as the trio of midfield marvels in Nathan Fyfe (2015), Patrick Dangerfield (2016) and Dustin Martin (2017), but it was no less deserved.
It was a victory for sheer hard work, his self-confessed “obsessive” work rate honed with regular technique sessions with the legendary Greg Williams, himself so much more than a midfield extractor.
If goal-of-the-year recipient Jack Higgins told the crowd his heart was beating “a thousand minutes a second”, Mitchell so often makes time stand still.
Few players in the AFL can so effectively create a metre of space here, a split second of extra time by whipping onto a left foot that has become increasingly lethal this year.
We shouldn’t be surprised, but strike ruckmen off the list of players now capable of winning the Brownlow Medal after Max Gawn (20 votes) and Brodie Grundy (17) were both stuck on seven votes in Round 11 before coming home late.
There seems little appetite for the AFL to change its voting system yet Gawn, Grundy, Lance Franklin and Rory Laird were the only non-midfielders in the top 28 vote-getters.
As usual much of the All Australian team fared just as badly: Alex Rance polled no votes, Tom Stewart four, Jeremy McGovern six, Shannon Hurn six, Luke Breust seven and Jack Gunston 10.
Mitchell has never needed help finding the ball, once recording a state-league record 64 possessions and four goals in a NEAFL game.
The problem was what he did with it, which is why he was playing NEAFL in the first place.
Why he won the Brownlow Medal was he finally mastered modern football, wresting the ball from stoppages then finally pausing for think music instead of blasting it forward aimlessly.
Many of those rough edges were chiselled off through the coaching of the masterful Alastair Clarkson, who forced Mitchell to hone his weaknesses until they too were strengths.
He is an accumulator but he is more than that as well, mixing those 30-plus possession tallies with a dozen goals, 138 tackles and 173 clearances this year.
The night itself mixed the predictable with the downright confounding.
Gold Coast had to clarify Michael Rischitelli was playing on after Seven’s retirement package included him instead of teammate Michael Rosa as a departing veteran.
But the night’s genuine shock came from the most unlikely of sources.
Marley Williams’ three vote performance for seven kicks, seven handballs, three clangers and 66 Supercoach points on Good Friday was a genuine showstopper.
In that game Ben Brown kicked six goals and Todd Goldstein racked up 38 hitouts and 16 possessions, yet somehow Williams came away with the chocolates.
But the night belonged to Mitchell, whose mastery of possession-winning has reached new heights these past two seasons.
And that is a skill that will that will never go out of fashion.
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Originally published as Tom Mitchell won the Brownlow Medal in the same fashion he plays his footy, writes Jon Ralph
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