Nat Fyfe was about as thoroughly deserving a winner of the Brownlow Medal as there ever has been – even despite scraping through on the “fairest” side of the ledger by the skin of his teeth this year.
Fremantle‘s gun midfielder took out the AFL‘s highest individual honour last night – believe it or not, it’s the Dockers‘ first major trophy as a football club in their 20 year existence – racking up a mammoth 31 votes to hold off last year’s winner Matt Priddis of the West Coast Eagles.
In doing so, Fyfe became the first player in some 50-odd years to win the medal despite missing four games of the regular home & away season.
And it’s his acceptance speech that’s garnering all the praise of the footballing world this morning. Humble, team-focused, and extremely eloquent, it’s the kind of oration that only grows respect for him as an individual and a representative of his football club.
Hell, he even took a little cheeky dig at Bruce McAvaney while he was at it.
“Bruce, you could probably win a Brownlow with Aaron Sandilands hitting it down your throat.“
Well played, Nat.
As for today, Fyfe’s dance card is suddenly full of all the (shirtless) morning radio and press interviews that a Brownlow Medalist can expect to have.
Brownlow Medallist Nat Fyfe back on the air this morning as he does the media rounds. pic.twitter.com/kFCNhQ3AXR
— Patrick Keane (@AFL_PKeane) September 28, 2015
That’ll be followed up in the afternoon bit a little bit of casual surgery on that broken leg it turns out he played on all throughout last Friday night’s gruelling Preliminary Final loss to Hawthorn.
No big deal.
