So the Brownlow has credibility issues. What’s new?

Lachie Neale wasn’t the only one rattled by the outcome of the Brownlow Medal count.

Fans were surprised, as were many in the room on the night. A humble Neale apologised for his lack of preparedness to make the winner’s speech.

Neale wasn’t the best player of 2023’s home-and-away season, as he had been when he won his first Brownlow in 2020. He wasn’t in the top 15 players in the competition this year.

Most telling is the fact that Neale did not make the 2023 All-Australian team. He’s the first player to take home “Charlie” without making the AFL’s official team of the year since Matt Priddis in 2014.

Fans and punters who’d lost multis can moan all they like about the result. Inevitably, there will be calls for the Brownlow voting to be taken from the umpires, given one can pinpoint particular games in which Neale was treated generously in the votes and Marcus Bontempelli or Nick Daicos were dudded.

But Neale’s second Brownlow is hardly the first time that the count has thrown up a result that stunned everyone.

Priddis was a bolter in 2014. In 2000, Demon Shane Woewodin was a major surprise and also did not make the All-Australian team when a colossal Anthony Koutoufides was the pre-count favourite.

Paul Kelly was an outsider in 1995. In the subsequent years, Kelly showed that the umpires were actually ahead of the curve in assessing his worth. Gavin Wanganeen wasn’t a favourite when he took the medal with a low tally from the back pocket in 1993.

Further back, Robert Dipierdomenico was a thigh-slapping shock when he tied with Sydney’s Greg Williams (1986). “I came for the free feed,” Dipper quipped. Tony Liberatore surprised in 1990. Melbourne’s Brian Wilson was another who came from the clouds in 1982 and whose career resume isn’t at the level of most winners.

That the Brownlow Medal has sporadically thrown up these rogue results has added to its mystique and charm. Would it be as interesting, or appealing, if it followed a Champion Data-ordained script?

Brian Wilson won the Brownlow in 1982.Credit: The Age

There is an unpredictability to umpire voting, albeit one can discern certain patterns. One is that they like inside ball-getters – see Patrick Cripps (2022 and even this year) and Ollie Wines (2021).

Another pattern: players such as Neale, Errol Gulden and Nick Daicos stood a better chance than those, such as Zak Butters, who had at least one fellow midfielder cutting their lunch by taking votes (Connor Rozee and Jason Horne-Francis). Christian Petracca (26 votes) appealed as a beneficiary of Clayton Oliver’s absences, only for Jack Viney (24) to pick up the Oliver slack.

Who really thinks the Brownlow is the genuine measure of players’ worth in a given season? Or that it is the arbiter of a footballer’s achievements over a career? Most AFL coaches certainly don’t.

Neale has two Brownlows now. One that he was favourite to win (2020) when he was the competition standout, another in which the umpires have treated him generously. It matters not. He’s still an outstanding player.

Lachie Neale couldn’t quite believe he’d won a second Brownlow Medal.Credit: AFL Photos

Marcus Bontempelli doesn’t have a Brownlow to his name, but has twice won the players’ MVP and has been All-Australian five times and counting. It would be hard to find anyone within the game make the case that Neale is a superior player to “the Bont”.

Wayne Carey and Leigh Matthews are viewed as the best players of their and almost any era. Neither won Brownlows. Carey, as a key forward nonpareil, was becoming the code’s premier player around the time that the Brownlow – which also, in a quaint tradition, is confined to the “fairest and best” – was turning into a midfielder monopoly.

The lack of recognition to key position players, compared with midfielders, has reduced the Brownlow’s gravitas, although the coaches’, players’ MVP and media awards, too, are wholly owned by the best midfielders.

In 2022, the Brownlow’s credibility issues were underscored, not by Cripps’ win, but by the staggering fact that Steven May, Jacob Weitering and Darcy Moore – arguably the three premier key backs in the competition – did not muster a single vote between them.

The Brownlow is football’s “night of nights” in the sense that it’s the game’s answer to the Grammys or the Oscars, replete with fashion, red carpet, low-level paparazzi and tacky glitz. It is, above all, an entertainment – and betting – event designed for television and to celebrate players, past and present.

The umpires aren’t awarding the Nobel Prize.

For all that, it remains the most coveted individual honour in football, bar one for which Neale would surely trade this Brownlow on Saturday: the Norm Smith Medal, for the best afield in the grand final.

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