For those that know me it would not surprise you that I’ve been analysing players’ performances and, based on that, postulating what Brownlow votes they might be awarded from the umpiring brigade. I wasn’t thinking of publishing my findings here on Dockerland but considering Serong was at the top, together with Butters and Daicos, I thought I would share the hope!
Please don’t use this predictor to place bets. I’m no visionary and I am most certainly wrong. But it is fun to see the possibility of another Brownlow heading Freo’s way.
Below this table I’ve briefed what I did to get this accumulation. Read it if you have trouble sleeping.
Hg's Brownlow Predictor - Round 20
| Player |
Brownlow Votes
|
Ranking
|
| Caleb Serong - Fremantle |
25
|
1
|
| Zak Butters - Port Adelaide |
25
|
2
|
| Nick Daicos - Collingwood |
25
|
3
|
| Matt Rowell - Gold Coast |
22
|
4
|
| Noah Anderson - Gold Coast |
22
|
5
|
| Ed Richards - Western Bulldogs |
20
|
6
|
| Hugh McCluggage - Brisbane |
18
|
7
|
| Andrew Brayshaw - Fremantle |
18
|
8
|
| Tom Green - Greater Western Sydney |
17
|
9
|
| Bailey Smith - Geelong |
17
|
10
|
I collected all sorts of data to come up with this table. Apart from the usual disposals, marks and tackles, I had things like pressure acts, contributions to scoring opportunities and the frequency of players participating in the centre bounce downs. The initial data I used came from the full 2024 season and I matched it up with the umpires’ 3, 2, 1 voting. What surprised me most was that I could not find any weighting that did not have Nick Daicos winning! As you’ll remember, Cripps won and I kept finding that he would come close together with players like Lachie Neal but never could they beat Daicos.
Years and years ago, a mate of mine was heavily involved with the management of the WA Turf Club and he gave me good advice: “
Never bet on an event where humans are involved.” Maybe Nick Daicos kept parking his car in the umpires’ parking bays or even back-chatted them too often. I don’t know. But he seemed not to get the votes he should have last year.
There is something I might try when I am enthusiastic once again, and that is to test out some Markov Chain variations. For example, if a player scored Brownlow votes in the previous match, was he more likely or less likely to score votes in the next AFL round? I’ll wait until the data analytics bug bites me again and try some of these things out.
