Last night’s Brownlow Medal ceremony – Australia’s most glamourous celebration of counting to three and being allowed to get Brendan Fevola-levels of inebriated because the footy season is over – saw the Gold Coast Suns captain Gary Ablett Jr win his second Brownlow Medal, the AFL‘s award for Best and Fairest player.
Ablett Jr is the 14th player in AFL/VFL history to win the Brownlow twice, and it was the fourth time in twenty years that the medal has been awarded to a player who’s team didn’t finish in the top half of the ladder.
In his acceptance speech Gary Ablett Jr praised both his father (implying that he has no plans to change his name to “Flynn” anytime soon) and Brownlow runner up and former Geelong teammate Joel Selwood. After polling three votes in the final match of the season to edge ahead of Selwood and win the count by one vote, Ablett Jr admitted that he would have preferred a draw, telling Bruce McAvaney “I did want the two, I was actually shattered when I got the three, Joel deserves this as much as I do.”
Of course, the best part about the AFL’s night of nights is our annual viewing of this video:
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