Why Patrick Cripps should be happy to see Jacob Mollison tonight
Some umpires appear to have given Cripps a leg up in the Brownlow voting last year – but they weren’t the only ones potentially playing favourites.
Last year Patrick Cripps won his second Brownlow Medal with a whopping 45 votes, seven clear of Nick Daicos (38) and 16 ahead of Zak Butters (29).
Both Cripps and Daicos bettered the previous record for the highest number of votes awarded in a single season under the current 3-2-1 system – 36, set by Dustin Martin in 2017 and Ollie Wines in 2021 – but did so in different ways.
Cripps polled in 17 of his 23 games, receiving three votes on 12 occasions…