Then there were two! With one round left in the 2024 AFL Season, this year’s Brownlow is going to come down to the wire.
Brownlow Leaderboard
| Player | Votes | Odds |
|---|---|---|
| 1. P.Cripps (Carl) | 29.00 | $2.70 |
| 2. N.Daicos (Coll) | 28.25 | $3.80 |
| 3. I.Heeney (Syd) | 26.25 | N/A |
| 4. L.Neale (BL) | 25.00 | $7.00 |
| 5. M.Bontempelli (WB) | 23.25 | $8.00 |
Best Bet
More confident that Cripps polls three votes against the Eagles than Daicos in Collingwood’s shock win over the Lions, which has the Carlton Skipper now in the box seat.
Cripps doesn’t have a great recent polling history against St Kilda, but neither does Daicos against the Dees where they used Alex Neal-Bullen to keep Daicos to just 15 disposals in the King’s Birthday game this year.
With no one within striking distance of these two with one round left, I think Cripps holds on.
Lay
Sam Darcy stole Bontempelli’s chance of being in the Brownlow race with one round left when the big man kicked 7 goals, and although Bontempelli is a strong chance to secure two votes it won’t be enough with one round left.
Bontempelli will most likely face the Toby Bedford tag in the last round of the season, where he could spend most of his time up forward impacting his ball winning ability.
Bont doesn’t have a great recent polling record against the Giants, so despite being judged as the best player in the competition by many experts, it appears it will be another year where the Brownlow eludes him.
Value Bet
A clear three-vote performance by Butters on the weekend, and he’ll be closer to the top of the leaderboard than the odds suggest.
With the Power winning 15 games this season and as their primary poller, Butters will finish in the top-ten and push a top-five finish.
Butters polled 27 votes last year and his 2024 season is statistically better – more disposals, more clearances, with a slight hit in inside 50s; a metric that has never really affected brownlow votes.
Off the back of that monster Showdown performance, Butters moves to seventh on our leaderboard on 20.25 votes – don’t be surprised if he’s closer than this though.
