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Stats observations

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The 1996 Brownlow Medal produced some amazing statistics as follows:

  • There was an unprecedented three-way tie between James Hird (Essendon), Michael Voss (Brisbane Bears) and Corey McKernan (North Melbourne), all on 20 votes.
  • Corey McKernan was unable to receive the award due to a suspension during the same season and remarkably had the same experience when he was ineligible to win the 1994 Rising Star Award due to suspension.
  • The ineligibility of Corey McKernan was the first time this had happened in the history of the Brownlow Medal, but amazingly it happened again the following season when outright poll leader Chris Grant was ineligible to win the 1997 Brownlow due to suspension, and Robert Harvey from St Kilda was awarded the Brownlow for that year but the situation of an ineligible player topping the vote count has not come up again in nearly 30 years since.
  • Had McKernan not been suspended and been eligible to receive the medal he would have been the first North Melbourne player to win in 13-years after Ross Glendinning in 1983. In all the years since then North have not produced a Brownlow Medalist, giving the Kangaroos a 42-year Brownlow drought coming into this season, the longest current drought in the AFL.
  • The merger between Fitzroy and the Brisbane Bears after the 1996 season ensured that Michael Voss's win that year would be the first and only time a Bears player would win this award.
  • Essendon had always had a good record in Brownlow Medals, and James Hird's 1996 win just three years after the last one in 1993. Following Hird's 1996 Brownlow however 16 years would go by before another Essendon player - Jobe Watson - would win the award in 2012, by which time Hird was Essendon coach.
  • Following the supplements scandal which rocked Essendon in the mid 2010s, Jobe Watson was stripped of the 2012 Brownlow following the 2016 season and the award was given retrospectively to joint runners up Trent Cotchin from Richmond and Sam Mitchell from Hawthorn. For the Tigers, this was the first time one of their players had won a Brownlow Medal since Ian Stewart way back in 1971 and for Hawthorn it continued an odd trend for the club of sharing Brownlow Medals with players from other teams, the only Hawthorn winner in his own right to this stage Shane Crawford in 1999.
  • No Essendon player has won a Brownlow Medal after 2012, and with this award stripped from the club James Hird's 1996 win remains the last by the Bombers to date and drought of 30 years.
  • After the ineligibility of Corey McKernan in 1996 and Chris Grant in 1997, St Kilda's Robert Harvey won the award again in 1998 this time by having most votes, while Shane Crawford became the first Hawthorn player to win a Brownlow on his own in 1999. There was an odd sense of de ja vu following the 2016 re-awarding of the 2012 Brownlow to Trent Cotchin and Sam Mitchell when in 2017 Richmond's Dustin Martin won the award outright, with this followed in 2018 by Tom Mitchell becoming the first Hawthorn player after Shane Crawford to win a Brownlow Medal on his own.
 
With the 2026 WAFL season starting this afternoon, it marks 60 years since one of the more amazing stats in this league began and how abruptly and completely it ended.

For 13 consecutive seasons from 1966-1978 inclusive one the WAFL's three Perth teams - Perth Demons, West Perth Falcons and East Perth Royals - was always in the Grand Final, and frequently two of them. There were five Perth vs East Perth Grand Finals in 1966, 1967. 1969, 1976 and 1978 with all but the last one won by the Demons and two West Perth vs. East Perth Grand Finals in 1969 and 1971, the Falcons winning easily over the Royals both times. The three teams have always formed an odd and incomplete triangle of rivalry with each other, with massive rivalries between East Perth and Perth and West Perth and East Perth but no real rivalry between West Perth and Perth and it showed in this era with no Falcons and Demons GF in these years (last one was in 1949) despite long-term dominance and just three finals meetings between the pair in these 13 seasons.

The three Perth teams also won one premiership each at the expense of another WAFL club in this era - East Perth over Claremont in 1972, West Perth over South Fremantle in 1975, and Perth over East Fremantle in 1977 - and given that in 8 of these seasons the Perth teams filled three of the four finals spots it was hard for the other teams to get a look-in. East Fremantle and South Fremantle managed just two GF appearances each, the Sharks and Bulldogs each having a win over Perth to go with the GF losses previously mentioned, South Fremantle premiers in 1970 and East Fremantle downing the Demons in 1974. Claremont were unable to take advantage of their only GF appearance in these years in 1972 and the Tigers lost to East Perth, while Subiaco were able to grab their only opportunity a year later, the Lions beating West Perth in the 1973 Grand Final, their first flag since 1924. Swan Districts failed to qualify for any Grand Finals in any of these years.

Then all at once - suddenly and without explanation - it was all over. The 1978 WAFL season was the last one to date to contain all three Perth clubs in the finals, and for the next 14 seasons from 1979 to 1992 inclusive not one of them made the Grand Final. During this era Claremont qualified for 8 Grand Finals, Subiaco, South Fremantle, East Fremantle and Swan Districts five each. It wasn't until 1993 when West Perth made the Grand Final against Claremont that a Perth team made the premiership decider, but it wasn't a happy day for the Falcons with the Tigers winning the flag easily.

After winning the 1978 GF over Perth East Perth continued to qualify for the finals in following seasons - in fact they made it 5 times in 6 seasons 1979-1984 - but each time they had to start in the first semi-final, did not really look a flag chance in any of these years and in fact only won the 1SF once in 1980. After 1984 the Royals became the easy-beats of the WAFL for the rest of the decade, not returning to the finals until 1991. They broke their GF appearance drought of 18 years by qualifying for the 1996 GF only to be beaten by Claremont but would enjoy three flags in a row in 2000, 2001 and 2002. After this quick burst however the Royals fell away, and have been Grand Final dunces ever since, losing all four GF appearances in 24 years since then.

West Perth became one of the WAFL's more enigmatic teams, making only intermittent finals appearances during the 1980s in 1982, 1985 and 1989 and the Falcons like their arch rivals the Royals had to start in the first semi final each time with no double chance. West Perth beat East Perth in this match in 1982, but lost to Swan Districts in 1985 and East Fremantle in 1989. The Falcons then endured three wooden spoons in a row in 1990, 1991 and 1992, before rapid improvement in 1993, breaking a premiership drought of 20 years against Subiaco in 1995, and have since gone on to win flags in 1999, 2003, 2013 and 2022 an average on one per decade with a number of runner-up appearances too.

Perth fell right away after losing the 1978 GF, not making the finals again until 1986 with September appearances few and far between for the Demons in 1991, 1997, 2020 and 2025, many of the other years the team languishing at or near the bottom of the ladder. Perth have not made a Grand Final since 1978 and not won one since 1977. In the COVID affected season of 2020 a first semi final between West Perth and Perth (the Falcons beating the Demons) marked the first time these teams had been in the same finals series since 1978, and their first finals meeting since 1976.

Just how the dominance of the three Perth teams ended so fast and so completely from 1979 is harder to explain. All three clubs were afflicted by financial problems in the 80s and 90s but so were the other clubs, and this only happened after they had already fallen away. If any changes in recruitment zones were made around this time would it have shown up so fast with all three teams? Perhaps time travelers from the year 2179 went back 200 years and made some minor mistake that skewed WA sporting history? Maybe the planets moved out of the correct alignment from 1979? Or maybe a local football fan incensed that his suburban team North Perth folded at the end of 1979 screamed a curse that all other Perth teams (including South Perth Tigers) would struggle for the next 15 years? Your guess is as good as mine.
 
Last edited:
Didn't know where to put this,

Melbourne v Gold Coast​

10 Max Gawn (MELB)
8 Jack Steele (MELB)
6 Kysaiah Pickett (MELB)
4 Tom Sparrow (MELB)
2 Jake Melksham (MELB)

The coaches votes Melbourne vs. Suns were perfect, unanimous 5-4-3-2-1.
Not sure whether thats happened / last time that happened before
 

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