In a bloated broadcast loaded with cliche, inanity and vacuity, something quite unexpected happened on Monday night. More than a year after he’d been knocked out in a qualifying final, and eight months after he’d been medically retired, Angus Brayshaw walked on stage and proposed a toast.
“It’s certainly not lost on me that I’m making a toast to a group that I now belong,” he said. “The absence of football has left a very deep void. Days that were planned to the minute, and filled with purpose, need to be replaced and in time they will be. Football is all-consuming, and no matter how long your career was, how successful it was, or even how well you prepared for the next stage, the transition is difficult.”
It was unusual to see someone who didn’t have a medal around his neck speak with such honesty and emotional depth. Then, of course, we went back to the betting ads, to the bored girlfriends, to the musical interludes, to Hamish McLachlan’s reverse telegraphic line of questioning (“Crippa. Brownlow. Chance?”) and to the very real question of whether this event was going to wind up before Saturday’s game.
There were no such surprises with Patrick Cripps’ second Brownlow medal. But not even the most rusted-on Carlton fan could have predicted such a demolition. He and Nick Daicos were expected to go stride for stride. But the Carlton champion finished seven votes ahead. He smashed Dustin Martin and Ollie Wines’ record for the most votes in a season, and became the 17th man to win a Brownlow medal at least two times.
He won his first Brownlow with 29 votes. That night, he spoke of his shyness, his stutter, his fear of public speaking. He was the outstanding player that year, and deserved to win, but he got a nice leg up from Carlton’s tribunal lawyer. No one on the Blues’ payroll, with the possible exception of Cripps himself, worked harder and hit more targets than Christopher Townshend KC. He claimed an initial tribunal decision to suspend Cripps – thus making him ineligible for the Brownlow – was “infected with error”. He didn’t draw breath for nearly two hours. And he helped deliver Cripps’ Brownlow.
In previous seasons, Cripps has often been banged up by winter. He’s been asked to do too much. He usually had two or three opponents hanging off him. At one point, he had a broken back. “I can’t believe how badly he’s aged,” Leigh Matthews said.
Incredible as it is for anyone who watched him last season, he targeted areas to improve – to not get shut out of games, to be more consistent, and to embrace the grind of the longest ever season. This year, in a five-week period in the middle of winter, he had 59 clearances. He took on and took down some of the best and biggest midfielders in the game. He polled 45 out of a possible 69 votes.
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Elsewhere, there were the usual hard luck stories and head scratchers. Nick Daicos’ 38 votes were not enough to snare a medal. Marcus Bontempelli was the sentimental favourite going in but was clearly on the nose with the umpires. In round two in Ballarat, he received the maximum votes from both coaches but wasn’t recognised by the umpires. He was miles off the pace all night. Lachie Neale, who had an excellent year, finished with just 22 votes.
But no one who watched Cripps this year would begrudge him his second Brownlow. Back in April, at the end of an intense game against GWS, he was walking on his own, deep in thought, carrying two of the mini footies they hand out to kids. He sucked in deep breaths, shook his head, and processed his game. He slammed the two balls together. “Faaark”, he mouthed. He’d had 39 possessions, including 26 handballs. “He might be a sneaky Brownlow chance you know,” one of the commentators said. After that game, he ended up with eight more best on grounds, and burnished his reputation as one of the best and most admired players of his generation.
