Dane Swan’s ultimate 10-point-plan for a successful night at the Brownlow Medal count

GOING to the Brownlow Medal for the first time? 2011 winner Dane Swan has some key tips for a successful night. SWANNY’S 10-POINT-PLAN

FIRST a confession, I’ve never really enjoyed Brownlow Medal night, except for one year – 2011.

That was the year I won the medal.

But even then, I didn’t get the chance to celebrate it anywhere near as much as I would have liked, as we were playing in the Grand Final the following Saturday.

Here is my 10-point-plan for surviving the night, and making sure your partner is still talking to you come Tuesday, or Wednesday, or whenever it is you get home.

Dane Swan

My mates celebrated more than I did in 2011.

They backed me at $15, which was far better value than what I had been the year before, when I was odds-on favourite the night Chris Judd collected his second medal.

A sip of champagne was about as good as it got for me – there wasn’t a drop of vodka in sight.

Dane Swan shows off his Brownlow Medal in 2011 with girlfriend Taylor Wilson.

Every year I’ve been back to the Brownlow since, I have been trying to make up for it, sometimes with a hip flask in my pocket and with some table drinking games to keep us amused and well lubricated.

You need something to keep you going because it can be a long and boring night if you aren’t polling votes. And even when you are, there is a fair bit of pressure on you as the cameras watch your every move.

You need something to keep you going because it can be a long and boring night if you aren’t polling votes.

Dane Swan

The first time I polled really well, I wasn’t even in the room. There was no black tie for me in 2007. I was dressed up as Spider-Man, drinking with my teammates from almost since the time we had lost the prelim a few days earlier.

The next thing I knew I started getting calls telling me that I was polling well and I might have to head into the count if I kept getting more votes.

Bugger that, I thought.

The AFL hadn’t bothered to invite me and the club hadn’t nominated me, so I told them there was no way I was leaving my mates – even if I was to win the medal.

As it turned out, I didn’t win, and I’ve been back almost every year since as a player, or as a former winner, so I will have the chance to have a free feed every Brownlow Medal night for as long as I want.

I knocked back the invite this year. Maybe, that’s because my chances of polling a vote are pretty slim (don’t forget, my season lasted two minutes).

Dane Swan at the 2013 Brownlow Medal count. Picture: Michael Klein

And I’m live tweeting for a sports betting company. What could possibly go wrong?

But if my mate Dusty Martin happens to knock off the favourite Patrick Dangerfield, I’ll be there in a heartbeat to help him celebrate. And even if he doesn’t, I might try and catch up with him after the telecast anyway.

For all those AFL players making their Brownlow debuts on Monday night, here is my 10-point-plan for surviving the night, and making sure your partner is still talking to you come Tuesday, or Wednesday, or whenever it is you get home.

I’m not lying when I say that I have learned all these lessons the hard way.

Dane Swan retired after suffering a serious leg injury in Round 1. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

1. GET A FEW HOURS SLEEP ON SUNDAY NIGHT

So make sure you get some shut eye at some stage, and I don’t mean when you are being driven into the count.

Sounds easy? Well, it’s not, especially for players whose teams lost in the preliminary finals. You hit the drink almost as soon as your season ends, and the next thing you know, you haven’t had a kip for a few days and you are headed into the Brownlow. I’ve done it, and it’s not recommended. So make sure you get some shut eye at some stage, and I don’t mean when you are being driven into the count.

2. GO MISSING WHEN YOUR PARTNER IS GETTING READY

You need to vacate the house for the entire day when your partner is getting ready. Because she will use every room in the house to get her hair, make-up and whatever else ready for the big night. If you are there, you are in the way, and that doesn’t help anyone. Taylor takes all day, I can get ready in as much time as it takes me to put on a suit and put product in my hair.

3. DON’T LEAVE IT UNTIL 4PM TO GET YOUR SUIT

I blame the Melbourne Storm for this one. Our season had finished early a few years ago and the Storm had lost a preliminary final. I was having a few drinks with one of the Storm players who lives near my house and all of a sudden my partner stormed across to remind me we had to be somewhere – the Brownlow. I didn’t even have a suit prepared. So we had to make a quick detour on the way into the Brownlow to see my mate Sammy, and he fitted me out with a suit, and away we went. Wasn’t ideal, but we got away with it.

4. COMPLIMENT YOUR PARTNER ON HOW SHE LOOKS

If you don’t do this, you will be in trouble. Just remember it is not all about you, it’s also about your partner, and how good she looks. Make sure you tell her.

Brendan Fevola behaving badly at the Brownlow Medal in 2009. Picture: Channel 9.

5. PACK A HIP FLASK

Brendan Fevola stuffed it for all of us. When he ran amok at the 2009 Brownlow, he didn’t just get in trouble with Carlton. He put the responsible serving of alcohol at the forefront of the AFL’s mind, and that’s made it very hard for us to get a drink on Brownlow night ever since. You can barely get a drink on the tables now once Gill McLachlan starts the vote count. So the only solution for me in recent times has been to bring a hip flask containing some vodka hidden away in my partner’s purse. Twenty three rounds goes faster that way.

6. DO THE RED CARPET AND THEN DO A RUNNER

You have to do the red carpet because your partner has to plug where her dress came from and you have to mention where you got your suit from. That’s part of the night these days. But that doesn’t mean you need to go straight into the room. Experience tells me to walk the red carpet, then take a detour upstairs for a while where you have a few quiet drinks with your mates away from the crowd. You don’t need to be in the room until the start of the telecast, which is a couple of hours later.

7. TIME YOUR TOILET BREAKS

Alcohol or no alcohol, you are going to need to go to the toilet at some stage. But you need to time your run at it. The toilets are outside the Palladium Room, and if you don’t get back inside before the TV commercial is finished, you’re stuck outside until the next break. It happened to me a few years ago when I was a contender. I got stuck outside and told the security guard that he had to let me back in, just in case I won it. He didn’t care and wasn’t prepared to bend the rules either. So when you do have to go to the men’s room, make it short and sharp.

8. PREPARE SOME DRINKING GAME

This is a Brownlow Medal tradition and even though there are a variety of drinking games, it seems as if almost every table has one. Ours has always been each person on the table is allocated a couple of players from the top 30, as well as yourself. One vote equals a small drink; two votes a medium one, and when it is three votes, it is a full skol.

Dane Swan suggests a drinking game to keep players entertained. Picture: Michael Klein

9. PRACTISE WEIRD FACES FOR THE CAMERA

It’s embarrassing when the camera turns towards you. It is either because you are getting votes, or you are not getting votes when you are meant to. That happened to me in 2010, when I was the beaten favourite. There were certain games when I was meant to get votes, and didn’t. The camera would then focus on me, and I didn’t really know what to do. So I just started making up some weird faces and it took some of the tension away. Try it. It’s fun.

10. AND IF YOU HAPPEN TO WIN, DON’T LOSE THE MEDAL

I was sober the night I won, so losing the medal wasn’t an issue. But I did misplace it a few years later. I did a temporary swap of my Brownlow for Dan Connors’ Frosty Miller Medal (VFL’s best goalkicker) and completely forgot about it. It wasn’t until about six months later when Dan said to me he wanted to give me my medal back. “What medal?” I asked him. “Your Brownlow”, he replied. I had completely forgotten about it. So if you do happen to win it, don’t lose it, misplace it, or lend it out and forget you did it.

AND ONE MORE ...

11. DON’T LEAVE THE COUNT WITHOUT TELLING YOUR PARTNER

This is a very big no-no, and it got me into trouble one night. We had a suite upstairs at Crown where a few of my mates were having a few drinks, and at one stage of the night, I figured it was a good time to join them. It was all going really well until I got a text message. Taylor wasn’t happy that I had left the room without her. So whatever you do, make sure you tell your partner when you are leaving.

Originally published as Dane Swan’s ultimate 10-point-plan for a successful night at the Brownlow Medal count