Former Fremantle coach Chris Connolly says the structure of the Brownlow Medal must be changed, declaring it outdated and gives key-position players no chance of winning.
He believes for the AFL to move forward the award needs to be taken out of the umpires hands, whom he believes already have enough to deal with during a game.
“It has to be changed, it has to be taken out of the umpires hands and the 3-2-1 is ridiculous. The player who gets three votes is not three times better than the player who gets one vote,” Connolly said on SEN’s Hungry for Sport.
“In AFL (we’re) really progressive in so many areas, we don’t discriminate against cultures, we don’t discriminate against religions, we don’t discriminate against women, we don’t discriminate against anyone except key position players in the Brownlow Medal.
“To win the Brownlow Medal you have no chance of winning if you’re a key position player. It is a midfielder’s award and that has got to be changed.
“In 50 years’ time when they want to track back and see the performances of players in this modern era now, they’ll be looking at the awards systems.”
How it should be shaped
Under Connolly’s plan the overall Brownlow Medal winner would come out of a group of six players - one for each particular position of the ground.
“Put together a large group who select this. Firstly the best small defender, tall defender, inside and outside midfielders and tall and small forwards,” he said.
“So we have six award winners on the night.
“Then out of that group you would select the Brownlow Medallist, the person who has had the biggest influence in his team performing across the year.
“You’re going to select the correct player. A champion player always wins it, but it’s always a midfielder and it’s not right.”
He said the group should be made up of club coaching staff, and former coaches who are now in the media.
“The people who select the award winners, not the one award winner – the award winners and there will be an ultimate Brownlow Medallist should be made up of firstly – the coaching staffs of each club,” Connolly said.
“Richmond (for example) would select a coach to be in involved in just making sure they keep an eye on the performance around the competition, via the Champion Data stats, all the vision they watch, all the conversations they have about who is dominating the competition the most.
“The coaches have to be involved.
“I think people in the media who understand performance, not the off-field dramas, or on-field, but performances.
“Those are guys who have been ex-coaches like a David King, coach at Richmond, now in the media.”
To add a further point of difference Connolly said a representative from statistical company Champion data could come on board considering they measure player performance.
“Then you could look at a representative from Champion Data. They do measure all performance in different factors,” he said.