Should suspended players remain eligible for the Brownlow Medal? | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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Should suspended players remain eligible for the Brownlow Medal?

Should suspended players remain eligible for the Brownlow Medal?

  • Total voters
    52
  • Poll closed .
Bob each way from me. The Brownlow is what it is. Best player wins it what? 1 in 3? Ok players with died or red hair win it, and boys next door normal-looking champions don't. But it has history and mystique that any changes would erode. Having said that, the modern fine system of the MRP has already eroded it. As has been said McKernan would have won it today, he would have been fined. He canvassed launching an appeal, rightly IMO, imagine how much more an ex player earns with BM after their handle. McLaughlin kyboshed it, which was bull IMO.

I reckon the Brownlow has really changed in the last 10-15 years with increased professional stakes and media saturation. Umps get on a bandwagon. Classic example of this was Acker. Didn't win it the year he clearly should have, then won it the year after when he probably shouldn't have.

Makes me wonder why KB didn't win it though. Best player in the comp, tick. High possession goalkicking rover/ midfielder, tick. Wierd attention-grabbing physical feature, tick.
 
I don't have any strong opinions on this, I'd probably leave it alone. I suppose it adds to the drama if a player is robbed.
 
Yes. Suspended players win B&F's all the time. The word fairest must stem from a long forgotten age.
 
TT33 said:
Imo if a player has been suspended he should not be eligible because he has been deemed at one time during the season NOT to have been a fair.
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But therein lies the problem.

Being reported is an imperfect measure of fairness and intent.

Trent Cotchin could eventually miss a week for causing an accidental head knock, but it doesn't mean he's not a fair player and deserves to be ruled ineligible for the Brownlow on the grounds of fairness.

If a player is suspended for 5+ matches throughout the season, fair enough... But such a player would be unlikely to get enough votes anyway - so I vote to ignore suspensions altogether.

Suspensions don't measure fairness.
 
jb03 said:
Yes. Suspended players win B&F's all the time. The word fairest must stem from a long forgotten age.
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Back when to be gay meant you were just a happy chappy
 
TT33 said:
It's a no for me.

The Browlow is actually for the FAIREST & Best. As voted by the Umpires. Not the Best & Fairest as people keep saying.
So the first element to it is who the Umpies think has been the Fairest player the next element is the best player bit.
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but in many cases the umpires are not reporting them, or thinking they are not fair.

i would guess some kind of standard could be applied, ie trying to differentiate between an 'accidental' head knock which may lead to a suspension and an deliberate whack/kick/head high bump etc.
 
My other couple of bob's worth is that a season is sort of an arbitrary line of 'fairness' to be drawn.

You might have a good 5 year record, be suspended for a week for a sling tackle in round 2 and then go 20 rounds of blinding footy... only to be ineligible.

OR, you might have a bad record over several years, get suspended for the last 4 rounds of a season for headbutting, then the following year have a couple of fines, get lucky and not sustain enough carry over points and at the end of that season you're eligible, yet it was only roughly a 'season' ago that you got suspended.

Of those scenarios, who is the 'fairer' player in most people's eyes?

PS - you could win the Brownlow then get suspended for something you do in the GF, but you'd keep your medal....I presume you could play in a semi final, get rubbed out and win the Brownlow the following week? Can anyone confirm this?
 
Then you have a "champion" of the game caught eye-gouging an opposition player for now reason. Does he really deserve a brownlow in that year?
 
Baloo said:
Then you have a "champion" of the game caught eye-gouging an opposition player for now reason. Does he really deserve a brownlow in that year?
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Nice example.

A player who has - eye gouged, pressure point held and chicken wing tackled. But played enough votable games to be deemed worthy of 2 medals.

Not sure if a suspension within one season has a lot of relevance. Getting suspensions right is more important - in fact the Brownlow probably just enhances the potential for weird penalties or lack thereof being administered - Fyfe might have got a week recently, but the under the current Brownlow rules, there might be some skewed thinking in those 'line ball' cases.
 
IanG said:
Thats why they have fines for small infractions now.
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But the stupidity is that the fines are being dished out for dirty cheap deliberate sniping, instead of for accidental or incidental actions within the contest.
Why does a player get a fine for deliberately punching someone in the guts n forcing them off the ground for a while, when another player who simply blocks a players run and cops some accidental head clash get suspended? Only one incident has malicious intent, the other occurs dozens of times a game, just unfortunate that someone was to stupid to look where he was running when there's bodies everywhere.
 
IanG said:
Thats why they have fines for small infractions now.
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Yeah this supports what I mean.

Since you can't directly measure a quality such as 'fairness', suspensions have long been used as an imperfect substitute tool for assessing fairness. But it's become increasingly out of touch with the actual quality they're supposed to be measuring as the years go by.

And I would also argue the phrase 'fairest and best' doesn't even capture the spirit of the Brownlow anyway - it's always been about the best. Within each match, umpires don't withhold votes from unfair players, just as they don't award votes for good sportsmanship.

And the most humorous possibility: They could've forgotten the traditional meaning of the word "fairest" as originally intended.

It could have been meant like how it's used in Snow White - "Who is the fairest of them all?" (The antonym to the word "foul"). Australians use this word more than Americans/Hollywood I think: "That's a fair hike!" / "It's a fairly big game coming up" - ("fair/foul" vs "fair/unjust")

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the AFL misinterpreted the word fair and then measured it unreliably and then rigidly enforced the flawed rules for decades by introducing more complex rules such as 'small infractions' to paper over the cracks. :police:
 
In the context of the Brownlow, "fairest" or "fair" has long been understood to mean "not suspended".

I'm not aware of any fairest-type motto associated with the Rising Star, but Dustin Martin was ineligible to receive any votes for that award after an MRP citing, despite not being suspended. Would hate to see the Brownlow go down this path. Keep it simple and leave it as it is.
 
Chimptastic said:
And the most humorous possibility: They could've forgotten the traditional meaning of the word "fairest" as originally intended.
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Ahhh....that would explain this!

images
 
NO!

No ifs, buts or any clap trap bulldust - a suspended player should never be allowed to win the "Fairest and Best" footballer of the year.

Why has this question arisen?

Because our once great and tough game has been turned into a game of tiggy touchwood. A good hip and shoulder or shirtfront use to be part and parcel of our game - the classic ball players of that era could ride those bumps - they ran in a style that protected them from these collisions. Bobby Skilton jumps to mind. Plus they were aware of what was around them and where possible collisions could emanate. Today's footballers run so open in the chest and the hips that they are begging to be cleaned up. Further they run without peripheral vision and are therefore totally unaware of where a good bump could come from.

True Australian Rules Football would have lauded Cooney's bump on the weekend as a classic tough passage of play - today we are so worried about perception of how the game is perceived that we have penalised hardness out of the game, under the guise of protecting the head of a player. Our very coach, Damien Hardwick's style of play would not withstand the interpretations of the rules today.

Reading between the lines ToO, the originator of this thread, is like me - yearning for a true hard contest where skilled tough hard men use their hips and shoulders to win the contested ball, to shepherd and to open a pack up for a smaller team mate.

I never liked the thump merchants or those cheap shot merchants but I did like the skilled tough hard at it hip and shoulder guys like Francis Bourke.
 
No, no, no...never.

Same with the suggestions that a panel award the votes rather than the umpires. It IS the Umpires award. Don't fiddle with it.
 
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