Adam Cooney’s unhelpful guide to the 2016 Brownlow Medal

BRILLIANT clearance work catches the umpire’s eye, but so do fancy goal celebrations and an impressive beard. ADAM COONEY sorts the Brownlow contenders and pretenders.

“I NOW declare Patrick Dangerfield, from the Geelong football club, the winner of the 2016 Brownlow Medal”.

This is the line most people in Australia are expecting to hear tonight but, as we all know, any hack out there with a flashy hairstyle and pale skin can attract the umpire’s votes. So as far as this translucent ranga is concerned, anyone can win.

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Umpires award the votes so it’s dangerous to predict anything with much confidence.

There’s many things that can attract Razor Ray Chamberlain’s eye during a game, from the bald shiny gleam off the top of Gazza’s bald head to the outrageous ink of everyone’s favourite, laid-back, waddling Collingwood superstar, Dane Swan.

There’s no doubt that the guidance, wisdom and overall life advice I gave Marcus Bontempelli in his first couple of years at the kennel has set him up to be the player he is today.

Over the past 20 years we’ve seen players of all different styles, shapes and personalities take Chas home. Matt Priddis with his gorgeous clearance work and impeccable golden curls. Juddy’s incredible burst of speed out of the centre clearance, taped-up shoulders and cardboard crusader deal with Visy, was impossible to ignore.

If anyone knows what it takes to win a Brownlow Medal, it’s 2008 champ Adam Cooney.

Ben Cousins’ ripped physique, boy band good looks and post finger twirl celebration meant he was always attracting votes. Nat Fyfe had aerial skills (he’s a helicopter pilot), fierce competitiveness and a commitment to perfecting the man bun making it sexy again. In fact, he deserved votes just for that fact.

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I’ve been given the unenviable task of sorting out the contenders from the pretenders at this year’s count. So here are my predictions for this year’s medal.

DUSTIN MARTIN

A huge chance to upstage Patty on the night. Ticks all the boxes in my opinion, gathers a heap of the ball, damaging when he gets it. Umpires are scared of him so will poll well for that fact alone. But the 2 big standouts for me are his ability to fend off opponents at will and his unwavering consistency in his choice of hairstyles. GET ON

Dustin Martin fends off Collingwood’s Jack Crisp. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

RORY SLOANE

Is he ineligible? Yes. But the Crows’ most consistent performer is a big chance to poll votes due to his enormous work rate and silky ball use. He also provides huge-on ground leadership and my wife has some strange woman to woman crush on his fiancee Belinda.

MARCUS BONTEMPELLI

Doug Hawkins famously nicknamed Dogs champ Chris Grant the “Rolls Royce” but surely it’s time to pass the verbal baton over to everyone’s favourite player, the “Bont”. There’s no doubt that the guidance, wisdom and overall life advice I gave Marcus in his first couple of years at the kennel has set him up to be the player he is today. Would be the Dogs most popular Brownlow winner since their favourite son Cooney won in 2008.

KENNEBERRY/HANNEKER/PARKERDY

I’ve grouped these three Swans superstars together because they’re basically the same people. Sure, they don’t look alike but they all rack up 30-plus touches every week, they are all hard as a cat’s head, win clearances and kick snags at will. A worthy trio of potential winners, all of them.

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JOEL SELWOOD

An unbelievably consistent performer. Seems a squeaky clean character, which makes it hard to find anything negative about him. Bleeds too easily for my liking. Could steal a few threes off Danger.

PATRICK DANGERFIELD

The only knock on his game is that three of his 40 kicks each week are helicopters. The clear favourite and standout individual player of the year, influenced the result of games more than anyone in the comp and will be a worthy winner. The only concern is possibly that he loses votes for mixing business and pleasure by surfing in a suit down at Moggs, but surely the umpires aren’t that petty.

Max Gawn is a hard man to miss.

MY SMOKY: MAX GAWN

A big man who’s confidence has grown immensely over the past 18 months. So much so his ability to read the play has transferred to his off-field living to the point where he’s so in tune with his body he knows when he needs to use the Sorbent and when the clean snap has been achieved, to just jump straight off the porcelain and continue on with his day. Genius.

There you have it. An extremely unhelpful and misguided take on this year’s contenders

Well done to anyone who gets a vote. I will be looking forward to charging my glass to one of these contenders at the conclusion of this evening.