Live: Brownlow Medal favourites upstaged early by Suns star’s record start

No votes for Bailey Smith in a win over the Bulldogs.

Two for Nick Daicos in a win over North Melbourne.

No votes for Andy Brayshaw either, but three for Jordan Dawson. Here we go.

Nothing for Rowell this time, but three for Noah Anderson. Somehow he only has five votes at the moment, which is just as nuts as Rowell having 20.

One vote in round 10 for Jordan Dawson, who really isn’t kicking on as he would have hoped. Nothing at all for Nick Daicos, his brother stole the votes in that one.

Two for Andrew Brayshaw as he moves into outright second.

Three for Max Gawn, interesting.

Two more for Matt Rowell! He’s got 20 votes after round 10 and is the clear leader.

This year’s Rising Star race came down to three really, with Murphy Reid, Dan Curtin and Levi Ashcroft just out ahead of Harvey Langford and Connor O’Sullivan.

And in the end, the classy Freo rookie Reid takes the cake. Taken with pick 17 in last year’s draft (an obvious steal at the time, I thought) Reid looked immediately at home at AFL level. Right from his incredible debut in Geelong, Reid proved he was a special talent and an important cog in the Freo team.

Sky’s the limit for this young man. He’s got poise, creativity and skill that can’t be taught.

I promise I’m not on the Matt Rowell hate beat tonight, but these votes are reallllyyyy interesting.

Rowell polled three again in the Suns’ 10-point win over the Bulldogs in Round 9 after picking up 20 disposals and five clearances.

In the same game, Tom Liberatore finished with 35 disposals, 10 clearances and 10 tackles … and didn’t poll a single vote.

That is now three matches where Rowell has been given three votes despite not polling a single coaches vote.

Do with these facts what you will…

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Nothing for either Daicos or Brayshaw in their head-to-head battle.

Three more for Matt Rowell! This is getting a bit silly.

One more for Dawson. Also worth watching Max Gawn who is up to 10.

Matt Rowell has six best on ground performances from eight votes. And he’s really only just getting started.

Marcus Bontempelli has another three-voter as he makes up for lost time, and Jordan Dawson takes two.

Two for Bailey Smith as well.

Nothing fot Daicos or Rowell in that round though. Bit of a logjam forming at the top.

So Suns star Matt Rowell is off to a flyer having polled best on ground votes on five separate occasions.

Two of them appear to be very, very generous.

The umpires gave Rowell the best on ground in the Round 3 win over Adelaide despite him collecting just 17 touches.

In that same match, Adelaide skipper Jordan Dawson led all players with 31 touches, but did not poll a single vote.

Rowell also polled another three votes in the Suns win over the Swans in Round 7 despite finishing with 16 disposals and 10 clangers.

Again, you’d have to think the context of the game helped him there because Darcy’s mark was very similar and probably not quite as good as Banch’s.

And as Darcy says on stage, “it was a bit controversial as to whether I actually marked it or not”, which is always a good sign for the mark of the year.

Pretty good player though, in fairness.

My favourite part of every Brownlow night. The specky will forever be the best part of our game, as evidenced by Jamie Elliott’s ridiculous hanger in the prelim against the Lions the other night.

Unfortunately, marks in finals are not eligible for this award so instead we are left with these:

• Zac Banch vs St Kilda: The North Melbourne midseason draft pick came flying back with the flight of the ball with little regard for his or anyone else’s safety, crashing into Ryan Byrnes as held the mark on his chest.
• Sam Darcy vs Melbourne: A mark that came in the biggest moment of a big game for the Western Bulldogs, Darcy sprinted towards a high ball and launched at Nick Riewoldt style. He would have been relieved to discover only Christian Salem stood in the way, but it was brave nonetheless.
• Buku Khamis vs Essendon: The only regulation screamer in the field, this one from Khamis actually looks better on replay than it did live. He got a decent little lift off Ben McKay as he split the pack.

Let’s be honest, it’s been a down year for the high flyers. Still, we will have a winner very shortly.

Well there you go, I thought that was probably the weakest of a weak field but what do I know! Was a big goal in the context of the game I guess.

The Gold Coast captain takes home the goal of the year while he tries to chase down his Suns teammate for the Brownlow.

Right, into the important stuff. Goal of the year is up for grabs, and you can watch all three of the nominated snags above. Let’s go through them together:

• Noah Anderson vs Collingwood: The Gold Coast skipper starts at the back of the centre bounce and streaks through the front of it, with a little give-and-go handball setting him free to goal from 35 out. Came in a big moment of a big game for the Suns too.
• Will Ashcroft vs Richmond: Brisbane’s Boy Wonder received the ball deep in the MCG pocket, looked inboard and pretended to think about passing for a  couple of seconds, then dribbled one under a defender and through the vacant goalsquare.
• Sam Flanders vs Fremantle: A beautiful day on the Gold Coast here. In the tipping rain, a srimmage at the top of the Suns’ goalsquare saw the ball break free momentarily, long enough for Flanders to somehow poke it through first time off the outside of the boot on a tight angle.

Got to be honest, not the strongest field of all time. Winner to be announced shortly.

Absolutely whipping through the votes here.

One more to Nick Daicos, and three for Andy Brayshaw who now joins Nick at the top of the leaderboard.

Three for Dayne Zorko who has 11, and is threatening one hell of a boilover.

M Rowell, three votes. His fifth BOG game of the year.

With that, Rowell takes his lead straight back.

We begin the round in Brisbane, where Nick Daicos helps himself to three more votes in a big win over the Lions.

One more for Andy Brayshaw and two for Jordan Dawson to edge a little closer.

Nothing at all for Matt Rowell this time, the streak is dead.

Marcus Bontempelli takes three votes from his first game of the season, back from injury.

And one more to Bailey Smith takes him up to seven votes.

No player in Brownlow history has ever taken maximum votes from the first four games of the season. Until now.

Matt Rowell has 12 from a possible 12 votes to start his season. Crazy stuff really.

It’s Gather Round time. Geelong beat Adelaide, the Lions came back from a mile back to beat the Bulldogs and Port held off the Hawks, just.

Nick Daicos, three votes. Here he comes.

But three for Matt Rowell too! He takes his lead straight back from Nick.

Andy Brayshaw has started really strongly too, he’s tied with Daicos at nine votes.

Jordan Dawson is nowhere to be seen on the leaderboard as some surprise names threaten the favourites.

Geez we get through them quickly in the early rounds. Have a drink of water, Andrew.

Two votes from this round for Nick Daicos, he’s up to six and right among the pack at the top.

Three more for Matt Rowell, who is our leader now! A few big names missed out in that round, including Anderson and Dawson.

Back to the votes we go.

Tom Liberatore is up to six votes, which is awesome.

Noah Anderson picks up one, and Matt Rowell three to continue his strong start. Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera has his first two votes of the year also.

Nothing for Jordan Dawson. And some early byes around the league in this one too.

I’ll get a leaderboard up and running eventually, once a pack has split itself off a little.

Three votes for Nick Daicos from the round two win over the Dogs, and two for Jordan Dawson against the Bombers.

Chad Warner has made a blistering start too by the way. He has seven votes through Sydney’s first three games to hold an early lead.

Early going but the big names have all got off to a decent start. Now for a breather.

Oh god, I’d nearly forgotten about this. How good was Opening Round? All two games of it? They’ve smartly included round one in this opening wave of votes, otherwise it would have looked very silly indeed.

No votes for Nick Daicos in Opening Round, because he played poorly and pulled up injured early.

Bailey Smith takes three votes from Geelong’s round one win.

N Daicos grabs his first vote of the season in round one, while Jordan Dawson claims three to get off to the perfect start.

Three for Matt Rowell and nothing for Noah Anderson as the Suns beat the Eagles.