2015 Brownlow Medal

2015 Brownlow Medal
Date 28 September
Location Crown Palladium
Host Bruce McAvaney
Winner Nat Fyfe (Fremantle)
(31 votes)
Television/Radio coverage
Network Seven Network
Fox Footy

The Brownlow Medal is the most prestigious individual award in Australian rules football. The award was presented on Monday, 28 September, in the week of the 2015 AFL Grand Final.

Nat Fyfe was awarded the medal, polling 31 votes. He became the first Fremantle player to win the Brownlow Medal.

Leading votegetters

Player Votes
1st Nat Fyfe (Fremantle) 31
2nd Matt Priddis (West Coast) 28
3rd Sam Mitchell (Hawthorn) 26
4th Josh Kennedy (Sydney) 25
5th Dan Hannebery (Sydney) 24
6th Patrick Dangerfield (Adelaide) 22
7th Dustin Martin (Richmond) 21
=8th David Mundy (Fremantle)
Callan Ward (Greater Western Sydney)
19
10th Todd Goldstein (North Melbourne) 18

Voting procedure

The three field umpires (those umpires who control the flow of the game, as opposed to goal or boundary umpires) confer after each match and award three votes, two votes and one vote to the players they regard as the best, second best and third best in the match, respectively. The votes are kept secret until the awards night, and are read and tallied on the evening.

A change was made in 2015 to the rules under which players could become ineligible for the Brownlow Medal. Under previous rules, players were ineligible if found guilty at the AFL Tribunal of an offence with a base penalty equal to or greater than a one-match suspension, even if the player then avoided suspension by taking an early guilty plea after the Match Review Panel's findings. Under the new rules:[1]

Due to these changes, there were just 34 players ineligible in 2015, compared with 61 in 2014.[2]

On 3 July 2015, the Round 14 match between Adelaide and Geelong was cancelled following the death of Adelaide coach Phil Walsh, resulting in players from those teams having one fewer game available to them to poll votes.[3] Various commentators made proposals to remove this disadvantage, such as removing all Round 14 votes from the count or awarding double votes for the return match in Round 23; but the AFL rejected all proposals, pointing out that the disadvantage to the players involved was no different to players who had missed the chance to poll votes in previous Brownlow medals due to their participation in interstate matches.[4]

References

  1. Nathan Schmook (25 November 2015). "The Nat Fyfe rule: Brownlow Medal shake-up". Australian Football League. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  2. Guthrie, Ben (28 August 2015). "Who's ineligible for this year's Brownlow?". those ineligible to win the Brownlow Medal in 2015 has dropped down from 61 players in 2014 to 33 with two rounds remaining this season. (Courtney Dempsey was then suspended in round 22.)
  3. King, Travis (3 July 2015). "Crows-Cats cancelled: What does it mean?". Australian Football League. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  4. Eliza Sewell (1 September 2015). "Wayne Carey suggests double Brownlow votes in Geelong v Adelaide clash". Herald Sun (Melbourne, VIC). Retrieved 14 September 2015.
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