Patrick Cripps was deemed a worthy winner of the Brownlow Medal this season, but his record-breaking vote tally has been labelled ridiculous and a warping of the system.

Dustin Martin (2017), Patrick Dangerfield (2016), Nat Fyfe (2015), Gary Ablett jnr (2013) and Chris Judd (2004) were also notable winners of Australian football’s highest individual honour this century, but it was Cripps, not because he won but rather because of the whopping 45 votes he polled, smashing the previous mark of 36 set by Ollie Wines in 2021 and Martin, who continues to raise eyebrows when it comes to debating the best season ever by a Brownlow medallist.

Former Hawthorn and Carlton forward Daniel Harford said Cripps had enjoyed a “ridiculously good” season, but his final vote tally “skewed the voting system”.

“There is no season in the history of football that is worthy of one player getting 45 votes. It’s a ridiculous outcome. Happy for him to win, no dramas, and I think he was the best player, but 45 votes, it has totally skewed the voting system at the moment,” Harford, now a commentator, said.

“He is in the umpires’ faces, and he is in the media conversation space all the time, too. Everyone is talking about him. Subconsciously, I am sure you are aware of where Patrick Cripps is. If you are watching the game, umpiring the game, broadcasting the game, you are aware of where Patrick Cripps is because he is a conversation starter for a lot of people, too.”

To declare Cripps’ season was better than any other based solely on the number of his votes is a major ask because, as West Coast premiership player and commentator Karl Langdon notes, the ingredients that make up each campaign differ.

“It’s hard to measure each season. You have got different opposition, different players from different teams, rules that were in place 20 years ago that aren’t now. There are a whole heap of different factors,” Langdon said.

“‘Juddy’, for instance, was a completely different player to Cripps. Judd was more that speed and magnificent balance where ‘Crippa’ has that brute force, not quite ‘Dusty’ like because he is a lot bigger. Dusty had good force for his size. But Paddy Cripps is that big, the little blokes struggle to get hold of him.”

What is clear is that the medal is now a midfielder’s domain, despite retired umpire Ray Chamberlain recently declaring the four officiating field umpires at the end of a game do discuss “who had the best defensive role, who shut down who”.

As elite midfielders who often pushed forward, Cripps, Martin, Dangerfield, Ablett, Fyfe and Judd were regularly under the nose of umpires.

Cripps’ stunning consistency was highlighted by polling in 17 of his 23 games. Judd polled in 13 of his 22 games, Dangerfield 15 of his 22, Martin 14 of his 22, Fyfe 11 of his 18, and Ablett 12 of his 21. Cripps had a remarkable 12 best on grounds, edging Martin by one.

When it comes to average possessions, all were busy. Cripps averaged 28.8 disposals per game, Martin 29.8 per game, Dangerfield 31.8, Fyfe 28.8, Ablett 31.2 while Judd was 21.8. All were contested ball and clearance kings, and averaged at least six score involvements per game.

While Cripps was dominant this year, dual North Melbourne premiership player and analyst David King said Martin, Judd and Ablett had redefined their positions.

“The best season ever? It’s hard to go past Dusty, but Juddy was a freak. When you see something so dominant for the first time, then you just say that’s the best I have seen,” King said.

“Juddy’s explosion from stoppage was the best I have seen. Some of Dusty’s ability to make people look silly, high-class players that understand the game, he would just push them off and dance away and make them pay with possession, then go forward and do the same thing, was probably the best we have seen.

“Have we seen what Paddy Cripps has done? Probably. Have we seen what [2011 Brownlow winner] Dane Swan did, Lachie Neale [2020 and 2023] – we have probably seen a few Lachie Neale types, that style of player, not saying they didn’t perform with excellence – but we hadn’t seen the Judd or the Dusty-type seasons.

“Ablett is in that discussion with Dusty and Juddy because they just did things so different to anyone else. So, different stands out to me. Does it mean better? I think it does. It takes a fair bit to shift the needle in the AFL.”

Martin (1.5) and Ablett (1.3) had the best goal averages, but Cripps, despite spending less time forward than he had recently, did contribute 17 goals last season, a notable return, according to Harford. Cripps’ record was 20 in 2022, when he claimed his maiden Brownlow Medal in what arguably was an even better individual season.

To put Cripps’ 2024 performance into context, he polled more votes than North Melbourne, West Coast and Richmond each received across the course of the entire season.

“I think we judge him in our mind as just this clearance player but, in 2024, he was far more than that. Does that mean he had a better Brownlow Medal year than the other winners? Probably not, but all the winners impact forward of the ball,” King said.

“They hit the scoreboard, or they create scores, or they just give so much supply forward, that’s why they are the dominant player. They all do it differently, but I just think we are late to the party to understand the brilliance of Paddy Cripps.”

While surprised with Cripps’ overall number of votes, King said the Brownlow now all but belonged to midfielders, and votes had been trending higher.

Langdon said it was questionable whether Cripps should have polled a record number of votes, and said he stood out because of his sheer size. Langdon suggested this helped Cripps turn a potential one vote into a best-on-ground, particularly as he was in the heat of the battle for most of the game.

There were some puzzling decisions by umpires through this year’s count, notably Marcus Bontempelli’s surprisingly low finish. Cripps, for instance, potentially benefited against Essendon in round 13 when, with a modest 19 touches at 14 per cent kicking efficiency, he still polled two votes. Langdon said Cripps’ year was no better than Judd’s of 2004.

“The answer to that question right there is no. No one predicted that Crippa would get that many votes. To be honest, I had Nick Daicos winning it by half-a-dozen votes,” he said.

League legend Leigh Matthews said during Martin’s 2017 blitz that he had enjoyed the best home-and-away campaign of all time. Martin had 14 games of more than 30-plus disposals, while there were 13 where he kicked multiple goals.

His play forward of centre was something to behold. He had the best attacking one-on-one win rate of any AFL player that season, winning 53 per cent of his one-on-one contests. What he ultimately had over Cripps, Ablett, Fyfe, Judd and Dangerfield is that his brilliance led to a premiership that same season, an important caveat, said Langdon.

Harford was full of praise for Martin’s 2017 heroics.

“The best year I have seen in recent years was Dusty ’17. That was a guy who just owned the competition and controlled games from start to finish when he wanted to. He was phenomenal,” Harford said.

“That was a year I look back on, when we talk about with mates about great Brownlow medallists and who had the best year of all time, Dusty 2017 is the one that pops up for everyone. He was power, he was precision, he was speed, he was goals – he was everything.”

However, it should be remembered that Judd’s 30 votes were among the highest in VFL/AFL history at the time, behind only South Melbourne’s Graham Teasdale (59 votes in 1977), Essendon’s Graham Moss (48 in 1976), South’s Herbie Matthews (32 in 1940) and St Kilda’s Robert Harvey (32 in 1998).

Ablett was so dominant in 2013 he polled 16 of a possible 18 votes between rounds seven and 12, a significant effort considering the Suns split their results in this period. Having won his initial medal with Geelong in 2009, Ablett needed a best-on-ground in the final round of the season against Greater Western Sydney to claim his second, edging Joel Selwood and Swan.

At the time, Dangerfield’s nine three-vote games tied the record set by Fyfe (2015) and Greg Williams (1994). He also polled in more matches – 15 – than any previous winner.

Fyfe burst out of the blocks and became the first man to be judged best afield by the umpires nine times during a season. He had 29 votes from his first 13 games, including seven best on grounds, more votes than any other player received throughout that season. His victory was even more meritorious because he missed four of the last six games, nervously waiting as he finished with 31 votes.

“He was not as big as Crippa, but he was part of an evolution, like Adam Goodes was,” Langdon said, referring to the Swans’ great and dual Brownlow Medallist who shared the top honour with Mark Ricciuto and Nathan Buckley in 2003, and was the standalone winner in 2006.

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