Remove this Banner Ad

Stats observations

  • Thread starter Thread starter red+black
  • Start date Start date
  • Tagged users Tagged users None

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

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
 
Shots at goal that were incorrectly judged by the umpire:

"Doug Beasy", St Kilda vs. Carlton, Round 4, 1958 - Saints defender Brian Walsh, under pressure from several Blues attackers, attempted to clear the ball 30m away from goal but shanked it right through the tall posts. The field umpire misjudged the play and gave the all-clear to the goal umpire, with it later officially going down as a Doug Beasy goal. Brian Walsh is the only player in VFL/AFL history to have kicked more goals for an opposition team than his own, as he never legitimately goaled once in his 131 game career. The Monday papers humorously put Walsh in the Carlton goalkicker list.
Colin Hounsell, Sydney vs. Melbourne, Round 1, 1982 - The first goal ever kicked by the relocated South Melbourne side actually hit the post, but was awarded a goal (although the commentator later said if it hit the back of the post, it counted).
Adrian Battiston, Melbourne vs. North Melbourne, Round 6, 1985 - Battiston latched onto a loose ball 20m out and ran into an open goal, but managed to shank it so badly that everybody in the crowd groaned in disappointment. Somehow, the only man in the ground who managed to get it wrong was the goal umpire, who awarded Battiston a goal much to the disgust of Andrew Demetriou, who would later be the AFL CEO during the demand and eventual implementation of the score review system. North Melbourne did get lucky, winning by a point with the last kick of the game.
Jason Dunstall, Brisbane Bears vs. Hawthorn, Round 12, 1987 - Dunstall's sixth goal, soccered off the ground from 15m out, actually clearly went through for a behind as seen on the reverse angle.
Peter Foster, Footscray vs. Essendon, Round 15, 1991 - Foster took a set shot from 50m out that clearly missed wide left, but the goal umpire got his bearings wrong and decided to award a goal. Cue a cheeky Foster personally thanking the goal umpire.
"Greg Williams", Carlton vs. West Coast, Round 5, 1996 - West Coast's Tony Evans very clearly soccered the ball through for a rushed behind, but Greg Williams somehow fooled the goal umpire by raising his arms in celebration. The goal was awarded and Carlton won by a point. It was a strange coincidence as the exact same thing had happened between the exact same clubs at the exact same ground in 1989, when Guy McKenna soccered a rushed behind off his foot that was also awarded a goal (although after talking with the field umpire, the goal was corrected to a behind).
Austinn Jones, St Kilda vs. Brisbane, Round 6, 2004 - With precious seconds ticking away, St Kilda drew to within five points of Brisbane when Austinn Jones took a shot at the 31 minute mark that the goal umpire awarded a behind, yet from virtually ever angle, the ball clearly went out on the full. St Kilda quickly regained possession, and with less than a minute left, Troy Schwarze kicked the winning goal and maintained the Saints' unbeaten start to the season.
Tom Hawkins, Geelong vs. St Kilda, 2009 Grand Final - Zac Dawson's complacent kick across the face of the defensive fifty was smothered by Hawkins, who gathered and snapped from 10m out but clearly doinked the post. The goal umpire awarded a goal.

Round 19, 2010 - The breaking point of bad goal umpiring decisions:
Jarrad Waite, Carlton vs. Essendon - Jarrad Waite manages to grab a bouncing ball in the goalsquare and slam it down onto his foot, just barely grazing the toe and going through for a goal. The umpire awarded a rushed behind. This was the most understandable of all three bad calls as it would've been very difficult to see from the umpire's point of view.
Jay Neagle, Carlton vs. Essendon - Barely 15 minutes after the previous blunder, Jay Neagle collected a loose ball and strolled into an open goal, putting it through with ease from 15m out. Yet, while Neagle was still celebrating with teammates, the goal umpire inexplicably awarded a behind. Replays showed that the ball had clearly gone through for a goal, and that the goal umpire judged the ball to have missed completely (despite commentators discussing whether the ball had scraped the post).
Shannon Byrnes, Geelong vs. Collingwood - During a crucial close contest in the third quarter, Byrnes managed to latch onto a dribbling ball and kick it through for a goal a good METRE before the goal line. Yet, despite the goal umpire being in perfect position to judge the play, he inexplicably awarded a rushed behind. The call was so bad that even commentator Stephen Quartermain shouted "he should never goal umpire again" live on air.

Aaron Cornelius, Brisbane vs. Collingwood, Round 22, 2011 - Cornelius's wobbly-looking set shot in the first quarter managed to sneak its way through for a goal, yet was inexplicably awarded a behind.
Sharrod Wellingham, Collingwood vs. Geelong, 2011 Grand Final - Wellingham's shot from 45m out doinked the post and, despite some Collingwood fans behind the goal quieting down, the goal umpire awarded a goal even though he'd been perfectly placed and despite the protests of Matthew Scarlett. With four significant high-profile incidents in three seasons, two of which came in Grand Finals, the score review system finally came into the game.
Ben Keays, Adelaide vs. Sydney, Round 23, 2023 - Keays' late snap shot squeezed in to put Adelaide up by four points, but the goal umpire was somehow convinced enough to award a behind without reviewing it. Adelaide lost by a point in a game, missing finals at the expense of Sydney, and the goal umpire was stood down.

Incomplete list, feel free to add your own.
 

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

Dean Solomon (Ess) claimed a goal that came off Jon Hay's (Haw) boot in 2005 R03, and the umpire duly gave it to him. Won them the game.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Similar threads

The Tip Jar
The Tip Jar: 2026 Season Projections (Stats-Driven Model)
Replies
6
Views
340
The Tip Jar
The Tip Jar
aflstatsiq
My new stats app
Replies
15
Views
2K
aflstatsiq
aflstatsiq

Remove this Banner Ad

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top Bottom