There wasn’t much movement of the top of the leaderboard after Round 22 – who should we be looking at in the run home?
Brownlow Leaderboard
| Player | Votes | Odds |
|---|---|---|
| 1. P.Cripps (Carl) | 26.00 | $3.45 |
| 2. N.Daicos (Coll) | 25.50 | $4.80 |
| 3. L.Neale (BL) | 25.00 | $5.70 |
| 4. I.Heeney (Syd) | 23.50 | N/A |
| 5. C.Serong (Fre) | 22.25 | $8.25 |
Best Bet
He was my lay last week at $5 and it nearly worked out perfectly – Neale didn’t have the impact with the Bedford tag in a loss for the Lions, but the main contenders around him in Cripps, Daicos and Bontempelli also failed to fire a shot in their teams’ respective losses.
Neale has Collingwood and Essendon in the run home – against the Pies he’s polled 10 votes in their last four home-and-away games, while recording 35 disposals in their Round 3 contest earlier this season.
Against the Bombers, Neale has polled 13 votes from their last six games where he’s averaged 34.5 disposals per game.
Two best-on-ground efforts from here and you can just about lock Neale in as a three-time Brownlow Medalist.
Lay
Surprised to see Merrett creep back to this price after drifting out to $17 a few weeks back.
He’s a chance to poll two votes in Essendon’s loss to the Suns, but Matt Rowell is a lock for the three.
Despite being one of the few players short in the market that could poll in Round 22, I’ve still got Merrett coming from a fair way back now on 19.75 votes in equal-eighth place. With Brisbane and Sydney in the last two rounds for Essendon, it’s hard to see them winning either of those and as a result Merrett won’t be making a late run.
Value Bet
We potentially get caught up in Supercoach scores and coaches votes which wildly fluctuate for Tom Green, but the Giants are right up there on the ladder with two rounds left and he will be their primary poller.
Once again top-ten for contested possessions, Green’s season has gone somewhat under the radar.
Across his career he has produced 25+ disposals and 1+ goals on just four occasions prior to 2024, where he produced three 3-vote games and one 2-vote game. Well, Green has easily trumped that career output in 2024 doing this on six occasions, and historical polling performance suggests he’ll be close to recording 18 votes from those games.
Although we’ve only got Green on 18.75 votes in tenth place, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Giant polled much better than this.
