AFL umpires will be given access to statistics when voting on the Brownlow Medal, but there’s a key detail within the adjusted polling procedure.

The league on Wednesday morning confirmed that its umpires would be allowed to request access to 17 key stats to assist in making their voting decisions.

Those figures will be provided by the AFL and “accessed on an AFL-issued device”, such as an iPad or mobile phone, if the umpire is seeking further information about players’ performance.

Stat access will be closely monitored, and umpires won’t be able to use their own devices for ethical reasons.

However, key to the new development is that it “is designed to assist deliberations only”, rather than act as the key indicator in the four field umpires’ voting process.

The aforementioned 17 key stats are kicks, handballs, marks, disposals, tackles, contested marks, goals, behinds, goal assists, score involvements, clearances, contested possessions, intercept marks, intercept possessions, spoils, kick-ins and hitouts.

“The Brownlow Medal is the most prestigious individual award in the AFL competition. Field umpires who are entrusted to vote are instructed to take time, care and thoughtfully deliberate before reaching a unanimous decision to ensure the integrity of the award is upheld,” AFL football boss Greg Swann said.

“While statistics can provide useful and reliable data, the essence of the award is clearly set out on the ballot paper. It is the subjective opinion of the field umpires that will determine the voting for the award, and the umpires are acutely aware of the importance of the award and the standing in which Brownlow Medallists are held in the game.”

Herald Sun and Fox Footy reporter Jon Ralph reported that seasoned AFL whistle-blowers had pushed for access to stats, “sick of being mocked on Brownlow night for perceived errors”.

There was major uproar last September when St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera received two votes instead of three after his matchwinning Round 20 performance against Melbourne when he kicked four goals from 34 disposals.

But while there’ll be a change to the way some votes are finalised, umpires will continue to follow the same procedure as in seasons past; convening to adjudge their best players in 3-2-1 format as a consensus.

So their voting is now just Best Player, and not Faiest and Best, as the main criteria.

1 minute ago, Willmoy1947 said:

So their voting is now just Best Player, and not Faiest and Best, as the main criteria.

Always was, the fairest part is just "you didnt get suspended"

Can almost guarantee that this is to get N. Daicos under the umpires' noses at the top of the stat sheet, instead of true game impact.

The Brownlow should embrace its quaintness, which is waning already. It's an oddity in top-level sport to have umpires voting AND giving 3s, 2s and 1s AND doing it based on what they observed.

In what other major sport could an ultra-consistent player who happens to be considered the fourth best player on the ground in every game get zero votes in the top award? In what other major sport is there no failsafe for a subjective opinion gone wild or just a howling mistake?

I presume giving the umpires stats is an attempt to make sure the Brownlow "gets it right" every year. What rubbish.

Let that be every other award.

Give me Priddis, Cooney and Woewodin. Give me Scott Wynd and Tony Liberatore.

RIP performances like Jack Viney getting 3 votes in the Wanganeen Milera like games.

Obscure performances getting 3 votes - those days are now over IMO.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Bring-Back-Powell

Seems like a common sense decision from AFL administrators. And that's a rarity in itself.

It already was leaning towards the player that got the most possessions; now it certainly will go to that person. Just give it to N. Daicos now, that’s why these changes have come in.

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Ethan Tremblay
Terrible speeling

Could we now retrospectively award the following a Brownlow then:

Runners-up (2nd):

• Bert Chadwick — 1924 (=2nd, the very first Brownlow count)

• Richard Taylor — 1927 (=2nd)

• Ivor Warne-Smith — 1929 (=2nd)

• Robert B Johnson — 1930 (=2nd)

• Greg Wells — 1972 (22 votes)

• Gary Hardeman — 1974 (23 votes)

• Stan Alves — 1975 (19 votes)

Third:

• Angus Brayshaw — 2018 (21 votes)

• Christian Petracca — 2020 (20 votes)

• Clayton Oliver — 2021 (31 votes)

Daicos now a shoe-in, disposals not categorising the sub-group - ‘soft ball gets’.

Rename it "most disposals for the season award" now.

All but confirms that only a midfielder can win the award.

Just now, Dr. Mubutu said:

true game impact

Exactly. Sorry, but Tom Mitchell was never in the top few most influential players in the game.

2 hours ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

I presume giving the umpires stats is an attempt to make sure the Brownlow "gets it right" every year. What rubbish.

I say this because you can read number and get whatever you like out of them.

And some of the the less basic stats are complicated by the fact the definition isn't always intuitive.

Just as a bit of an experiment, if you watched the State of Origin a couple of weeks ago, do you remember who won the first centre clearance?

3 hours ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

Give me Priddis, Cooney and Woewodin. Give me Scott Wynd and Tony Liberatore.

Give me Tony Lockett, Gavin Waganeen, Malcolm Blight.

Give the umpires some ability to recognise quality performances in parts of the ground other than on ballers.

Terrible decision. You can guarantee that a key defender will never receive a vote under this system and a key forward probably needs to kick 6 goals or more.

The top 10 disposals per game leaders last included Smith, Daicos, Parish, Sheezel, Whitfield and Hewett.

A million worthless touches every week that have zero impact on how their team performs.

Does anyone truly want to see these types of players winning the Brownlow Medal every year?

Honestly, I think the AFL should just stop making the Brownlow the flagship players award. Let it die and start promoting and use a countdown system for the Coaches Association award. The coaches have a much better nouce for recognising the better contributors and match impact for both their own players and the opposition.

Let the umpires focus on getting umpiring decisions right and not think about who's playing well or not. They should be as agnostic as possible to individual player performances. I actually wounder if some of their thoughts on player performances and star players bias a bunch of their decisions. Couldn't have been any more evident than on Kings Birthday last year.

That collection of stats isn't even as sophisticated as Supercoach points.

Whatever happened to the Inside Football player ratings pages?

Daicos N.

57 disposals, 1452 metres gained, 17 score involvements. Rating: 5 "I just don't like the guy, okay."

But in all seriousness, that one line of justification for the score for each player, each game, built up a really interesting picture.

Anything for Daicos to win.

He gets 10 kick ins a game pushing him up to 30+ disposals which will give him the brownlow.

Do all Brownlow bets made prior to the new “give it to Daicos” rule get refunded?

1 hour ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

Give me Tony Lockett, Gavin Waganeen, Malcolm Blight.

Give the umpires some ability to recognise quality performances in parts of the ground other than on ballers.

Yes. Definitely.

The variety of the pre-2001 Brownlow was one of its greatest strengths.

1 hour ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

Honestly, I think the AFL should just stop making the Brownlow the flagship players award. Let it die and start promoting and use a countdown system for the Coaches Association award. The coaches have a much better nouce for recognising the better contributors and match impact for both their own players and the opposition.

Let the umpires focus on getting umpiring decisions right and not think about who's playing well or not. They should be as agnostic as possible to individual player performances. I actually wounder if some of their thoughts on player performances and star players bias a bunch of their decisions. Couldn't have been any more evident than on Kings Birthday last year.

The Coaches awards are probably more biased than the Brownlow.. Have you not seen Chris Scott's AFLCA votes in the past?

It's hard to mount an argument that N Daicos is not worthy of winning the Brownlow Medal.

Having said that, how does giving umpires some statistics change the likelihood of a midfielder winning the Brownlow Medal? That's what it already is. And the coaches' award isn't much different.

If it wasn't a midfielders award before, it definitely is now. Votes will essentially go to whoever topped the stats sheet for disposals. N Daicos is a pretty safe bet to win the award this year now.