In a bloated broadcast loaded with cliche, inanity and vacuity, one thing fairly sudden occurred on Monday night time. Greater than a yr after he’d been knocked out in a qualifying ultimate, and eight months after he’d been medically retired, Angus Brayshaw walked on stage and proposed a toast.
“It’s actually not misplaced on me that I’m making a toast to a bunch that I now belong,” he stated. “The absence of soccer has left a really deep void. Days that have been deliberate to the minute, and stuffed with objective, should be changed and in time they are going to be. Soccer is all-consuming, and irrespective of how lengthy your profession was, how profitable it was, and even how effectively you ready for the subsequent stage, the transition is tough.”
It was uncommon to see somebody who didn’t have a medal round his neck converse with such honesty and emotional depth. Then, in fact, we went again to the betting adverts, to the bored girlfriends, to the musical interludes, to Hamish McLachlan’s reverse telegraphic line of questioning (“Crippa. Brownlow. Probability?”) and to the very actual query of whether or not this occasion was going to wind up earlier than Saturday’s sport.
There have been no such surprises with Patrick Cripps’ second Brownlow medal. However not even probably the most rusted-on Carlton fan might have predicted such a demolition. He and Nick Daicos have been anticipated to go stride for stride. However the Carlton champion completed seven votes forward. He smashed Dustin Martin and Ollie Wines’ document for probably the most votes in a season, and have become the seventeenth man to win a Brownlow medal at the very least two occasions.
He received his first Brownlow with 29 votes. That night time, he spoke of his shyness, his stutter, his worry of public talking. He was the excellent participant that yr, and deserved to win, however he bought a pleasant leg up from Carlton’s tribunal lawyer. Nobody on the Blues’ payroll, with the potential exception of Cripps himself, labored more durable and hit extra targets than Christopher Townshend KC. He claimed an preliminary tribunal choice to droop Cripps – thus making him ineligible for the Brownlow – was “contaminated with error”. He didn’t draw breath for almost two hours. And he helped ship Cripps’ Brownlow.
In earlier seasons, Cripps has usually been banged up by winter. He’s been requested to do an excessive amount of. He often had two or three opponents hanging off him. At one level, he had a damaged again. “I can’t imagine how badly he’s aged,” Leigh Matthews stated.
Unbelievable as it’s for anybody who watched him final season, he focused areas to enhance – to not get shut out of video games, to be extra constant, and to embrace the grind of the longest ever season. This yr, in a five-week interval in the course of winter, he had 59 clearances. He took on and took down a number of the finest and largest midfielders within the sport. He polled 45 out of a potential 69 votes.
Elsewhere, there have been the same old laborious luck tales and head scratchers. Nick Daicos’ 38 votes weren’t sufficient to snare a medal. Marcus Bontempelli was the sentimental favorite getting into however was clearly on the nostril with the umpires. In spherical two in Ballarat, he acquired the utmost votes from each coaches however wasn’t recognised by the umpires. He was miles off the tempo all night time. Lachie Neale, who had a superb yr, completed with simply 22 votes.
However nobody who watched Cripps this yr would begrudge him his second Brownlow. Again in April, on the finish of an intense sport towards GWS, he was strolling on his personal, deep in thought, carrying two of the mini footies they hand out to children. He sucked in deep breaths, shook his head, and processed his sport. He slammed the 2 balls collectively. “Faaark”, he mouthed. He’d had 39 possessions, together with 26 handballs. “He could be a sneaky Brownlow probability you recognize,” one of many commentators stated. After that sport, he ended up with eight extra finest on grounds, and burnished his fame as probably the greatest and most admired gamers of his era.