After three years of sustained excellence by the AFL’s pre-eminent on-baller, Gary Ablett’s hard running, incisive handballing and phenomenal ball-winning capacity earned him the Brownlow Medal this year, polling an extraordinary 30 votes. He could scarcely have done any more in the past three years to catch umpires’ attention, having won the Cats’ best and fairest two years ago, three consecutive AFL Players’ Association MVP awards, a swag of media gongs and won his third All-Australian nomination. In 2009 he took his prolific ball-winning to even higher levels with an incredible 34 disposals per week – racking up 40 or more disposals six times – supplemented with 24 goals and 25 goal assists. The 25-year-old managed eight best-on-ground performances despite missing three games through injury. Ablett responded to criticism from former Essendon player Tim Watson with best-on-ground performances in rounds 20 and 21 and helped his team win 20 of 24 games this year. Ablett then led the Cats to premiership glory over StKilda, and tied with Corey Enright for Geelong’s best and fairest. Andrea Petrie
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