AFL greats Tim Watson and Garry Lyon have hit back at criticism towards the adjudication of the Brownlow Medal after Lachie Neale’s surprise crowning on Monday night.
Neale took out his second Brownlow despite a host of other stars including Nick Daicos, Marcus Bontempelli, Zak Butters and Christian Petracca more heavily favoured to win the award.
Even Neale himself conceded in his speech he was shocked by his win.
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Throughout the night, social media was set alight over some of the votes given out in one of the more contentious counts in recent memory for the AFL’s top individual honour decided by umpires.
In the end, Neale (31 votes) only narrowly edged out Bontempelli (29) and Daicos (28).
But speaking on SEN on Monday morning, Watson suggested some of the commentary had been unfair given the subjective nature of voting.
“There’s all that sort of: ‘Go back and have a look at a game’. Hang on a minute everybody, this has been the Brownlow forever in a day,” Watson said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s an umpires vote, that’s what it’s always been and what it’s always going to be.
“You can be outraged for a moment or two … there’ll be a lot of Bulldogs fans out there thinking (Bontempelli was robbed). Unfortunately Marcus Bontempelli is a great, great player and superstar of the game.
“But this is what happens … we all got robbed at different stages.”
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Lyon concurred, arguing the blowback has been exasperated by the public’s increased access to social media.
“Amen, hallelujah brother … hey, this is the Brownlow, this has been happening forever,” Lyon told SEN.
“You know what the difference is? The difference is now you’ve got outraged people who want to make a name for themselves with access to a computer.
“The first one to get it says: ‘I want to put this on Twitter or X or whatever it is so they can look at me’.
“Stiff, this is the medal, it’s been going on for year after year after year … it’s an umpires award.”
The Demons legend argued it wasn’t the first time another player would’ve been left feeling they got snubbed on the night.
“You could get Diesel (Greg Williams) on and he could tell you about the day he got 40 (disposals) at Carlton, didn’t get the vote and it cost him (being) a three-time Brownlow medallist,” Lyon added.
“You could get 100 blokes on (who’d tell you the same).
“You don’t have to be the smarty pants who puts the tweet out to say: ‘Look at me, look at me. I’ve got a access to a computer. I can see data and all the stats here, look he’s had seven kicks and nine handballs.’ … so what!?”
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