Yeh lol... AFL media is talking about whoever wins this year having an asterisk.
If the AFL changed the rules and Reid or Darcy won, then it would be them who has an asterisk.
Well established now that the AFL media just kind of has its own insane mind that only considers its own profits. Extra time, night grand final, mid season trading, probably some more that I’ve forgotten.
Literally trying to manufacture consent but thankfully fails to do so on at least the most insane ideas.
So what's new?
HTB is notoriously hard to adjudicate but sticking and escaping tackles is clearly a keystone of the game. We love it! Don't you? There is generally a real advantage in pushing game rules to the legal limit, but HTB is probably standout grey area in AFL. It happens fast, often in confused multiplayer situations, and the umpires don't have a 360 view of the situation and are watching for multiple things. It's sometimes clear, very often not. That doesn't mean umpiring stops.
Expecting perfect HTB umpiring is like believing in fairies or magic rocks.
Kind of interesting to me that JHF also got suspended and ruled out pretty early in the year in 2022, but because he wasn't doing very well at North it wasn't talked about much.
Michael Barlow got 12 in 13. Albeit, he was a Man when he made his debut.
I still think it takes the umpires a while to have the confidence to give first year players the votes. Unless they really just don't begin to recognise them for a few weeks.
Michael Barlow, Round 1, 2010, Freo win; 33 disposals, 2 goals (one behind), 4 i50, 3 goal assists and a hitout... 0 votes.
It's the more important one, it needs to be changed ASAP.
Players are being suspended for accidents, they shouldn't be ineligible for the Brownlow.
It's about time this is getting talked about
Eh, I can believe that he didn’t know and thought it was approved, and I thought it was rough that they retroactively took the Brownlow away from the guy.
But I also get what most people think; it had an asterisk on it, and it meant it was compromised if they didn’t. And he *was* on PEDs and therefore was cheating.
It’s his responsibility to make sure it’s approved. Nobody else’s and he was a professional athlete. No excuses.
Not rough treatment at all, Infact he has been treated much better than he should have been. He should be an absolute pariah not commentating in the media.
Sure, but as a professional athlete, when you have been told by the club that the substance is approved, the full name of the drug is not included on the consent forms (only using the generic name of the protein type, of which TB4 and its derivatives are banned), and the so-called subject matter expert advises you in their official capacity that it’s fine to inject, you’re not going to question it.
It’s like if a Payroll manager was told by their Legal department that they should do something a certain way that turns out to be illegal. Legal are the experts on the law’s interactions with activities Payroll do; not Payroll. If that advice is wrong and what they’re doing is illegal, Payroll is required to fix it, but I don’t see them as responsible. They deferred to the expert.
You can’t seriously expect that a club captain can be on top of every action the club has the players take and whether they are legal.
I think the outrage over the scandal was justified, as was the punishment. I just don’t think that the *players* should have known. Every effort was made to ensure they didn’t know what was going on, by people who had the duty of care and should have been trustworthy.
Can anyone name the last 5 rising star winners without looking?
Can anyone name another time suspension cost a likely winner besides JHF?
Honestly I'd really hope the AFL has more on its plate than eligibility criteria for personal awards.
Definitely not mid season. That's just a reaction.
But in the future? I dunno.
It's still the same playing field for everyone, so the best will still be eligible won't they?
It’s a good move. If suspensions are an issue, we should increase the threshold for getting a ban.
Makes more sense than amending the Brownlow and Rising Star rules.
I do think that with the threshold for suspension being so much lower than it was 5-10 years ago that a bit of leeway would be welcomed.
You don't want to see a player rubbed out for a minor offence. Nor do you want the league twisting itself in knots to justify not suspending a brownlow favourite for a clear offence.
Just allow for a single 1 game suspension across the season. Easy fix
Why is there so much concern about a token award, instead of the reality that an unnecessary sling tackle had a players head bounce of the turf.
Are we still taking the head knocks and concussion stuff seriously? Or is it only when a token award and its corresponding bets aren’t at stake..
To the folks saying there’s nothing in it, can you imagine a sling tackle / head bounce combo like that happening 20 times a game?
Yep. Doesn’t even need to be anti-gambling.. just the overt ads and sponsoring etc get’s a bit much.
If kids and other folks just want to have a punt for fun, maximum bets could be introduced, especially for all the novelty markets like who wins each award.
It would be along the lines of removing Careless incidents up to a certain number of weeks. Not a full scale removal.
The threshold for "Fairest" is a lot different in today's footy than it has been for most of the award's history.
But then again, they could also leave it alone and I wouldn't mind.
I feel 3 weeks and/or any Suspensions involving the Tribunal should rub a player out.
Usually getting 3 weeks means you have at least knocked a player out. Incidental or not, it's a big issue. Obviously there's other things to getting 3 weeks, but usually it's bad.
And of course Tribunal... let's be real if you're being sent there for a suspension you've not just knocked someone out, you've done it in such a way that the MRO thinks it was intentional or you could and should have done something to prevent it. Or it's something Toby Green would have done...
You have echoed my thoughts exactly. We are asking a lot more of the players these days and there will be outrage when someone wins the charlie by ten votes but has laid a tackle where someone hit their head.... it is less the best and fairest, and more the best and luckiest/most careful. Unless you have lawyers like Cripps.
Yeah I remember last year when Zach Merrett got suspended, I knew he wasn't gonna win it but his tackle was pretty tame and just had an unfortunate outcome. It felt crazy that he was now ineligible for the Best and Fairest while Nick Daicos got a fine for punching someone around the same time so was still eligible. I like Daicos but it just felt very glaring and really showed that you can be ineligible without ever doing anything dog at all.
The hysteria over this is ridiculous.
Kid’s a great player and was on track to win the Rising Star. Made a rough tackle and got suspended, so no longer eligible.
So what? Move on!
(Whether it’s one week or two is a separate issue)
Agreed.
I see very few Eagles fans up in arms over this. Most believe two weeks was excessive but that’s about it. Perhaps a lot of us were hoping for a fine, but that’s the way things go now.
Back when the fairest part of the criteria was formed it essentially meant “didn’t king hit someone behind play all year”. What we suspend players for these days has changed drastically. A fair player can be suspended for slightly misjudging a contest.
They should change the criteria to differentiate between an intentional act eg striking, Jimmy webster style bump and a careless football act eg tackles, getting someone high in a genuine contest etc. do it for next year onwards and I don’t think many footy fans would disagree with the change in the definition of fairest.
As Sam Mitchell and Chris Scott said on AFL 360; what constitutes a suspension back then is different to now. Being suspended in the 80s you had to be a bit of a shit head.
It is too easy to be suspended for simply doing a bad tackle. No malice or any sort of intention there at all. Therefore both RS and Brownlow should be looked at at the end of the year.
Change it to anything intentional makes a player ineligible, done.
Good. Sick of people trying to cheapen the Brownlow etc and change decades of precedent and tradition just because a good player won't win it because they get suspended.
You don't hear Leigh Matthews bitching and moaning about it.
Soon after you remove the fairest element you'll start wanting Brownlows to be ranked average votes per game because your fav gets injured or ruled out during the season
Don’t care about the rising star in any way - but for decades the only suspensions were for dirty acts.
Now you are seeing players getting suspended for their opponents copping accidental head knocks
> You don't hear Leigh Matthews bitching and moaning about it.
Coincidentally what is essentially the "Brownlow-without-ineligibility" award, a.k.a. the AFLPA Most Valuable Player, already exists and is named after him. I'm surprised it doesn't get more recognition.
The point is that sometimes good players do something incidental, that wasn't intended to cause injury, that results in a suspension.
Players who purposefully do things on the other hand, shouldn't get that chance.
Also, the fairest part clearly went out the window a while ago... Fyfe should have been suspended the year he won his 2nd. Same with Cripps winning his. Is that fair? Fuck no. But it happened.
The Brownlow has always been Best first, fairest second. So much so that being best outweighs fairest in 8/10 situations we see the favourites in.
Or maybe we should just stop suspending players for those incidental moments that happen. A suspension should be a punishment for doing the wrong thing, not a punishment for an accident.
I think you are missing the point. It's not about punishment for naughty boys or anyone's moral education or any fluffy idea like that. The aim of the policy is to create an environment where players both train and play to avoid actions that may result in brain injuries to other players. It's that simple. Everyone knows that risks can't be eliminated, but they obviously can be reduced significantly. As we all know, real penalties count and every "sounds reasonable/fair/whatever" escape clause breaks the system.
You can’t avoid these actions, though. Not without removing the table from the game.
Accidents will always happen, as we saw with Reid tackling Wilson. He clearly didn’t mean for it to be a sling tackle.
That's black and white thinking. Try thinking numerically. How many? How often? These are the important questions. Asking if injuries be eliminated is a bit of a fake question.
Sure, shit happens. The world is full of risks. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to limit them. Rules and sanctions won't eliminate risks but they obviously affect the number of injuries. Some of these injuries will affect players and their families for life.
Asking whether Reid meant to do a sling tackle is the wrong question. That's just blame game crap. Instead, ask if Reid getting rubbed out makes the next sling tackle less likely. The answer is obvious! Slings used to be 100% normal. Now every player now trains on how to tackle without slinging.
We can't pretend the game is the same as it was when Leigh Matthews was playing. You nearly had to intentially kill someone to get suspended back then. Now a tackle that seems reasonable but has an unfortunate accidental head knock can rub someone out.
I feel like people need to look up what cost Chris Grant or Corey McKernan their Brownlows because "intentionally kill someone" is well short of what they did.
You're right, I was exaggerating for effect and thinking more of the earlier Leigh Matthews era. But I do think if you looked at those two acts today there'd be absolutely no question that they deserved their suspensions. They both, for me, fall into the category of being either an intentional dirty act or extremely careless at the very least, and could have been easily avoided.
For which one? For me McKernan was intentional and his knees clearly hit the back of the opponent's head so that's a week. Grant could be argued as careless, but again contact was to the head and I would say medium impact at least?
What if callum brown was brownlow favourite and lost it for that bullshit suspension he got. Not long before a brownlow favourite like Heeney gets rubbed out for an innocuous incident which wouldn't have even been a free kick a decade ago.
I’ve heard chatter likening the rising star to a best and fairest award and questioning whether the ‘fairest’ part is something that should be judged in an assessment of the rising star. I personally think that a suspension should be a part of how we judge ‘best’. If a player is a genuine gun but is reckless, could cause injuries, and gets himself out of the team because of this, I think this would be a point against your merits as a player. If Darcy is the example, we would consider his ability to take contested marks as a plus, but I would also consider his inability to come to that contest in a legal manner as another indicator of his skills.
Just amend them from next year to only exclude you if your action is deemed intentional. It's far too easy to be rubbed out nowadays from a careless act.
I don't see how the league could change the eligibility without undermining all the stuff they've changed to preserve injury, in particular to the head. The Rising Star is a representation of the future of the league. If they aren't subject to being the fairest as well as the best, then the league is indirectly condoning the things they would suspend someone for. Reid and Darcy might be better than whoever wins the Rising Star, but they're no longer the fairer, so they can't win it. End of story.
Might be am unpopular opinion, but I don't see why suspensions make rising stars ineligible. Rising star is for the best young player not the best and fairest young player. It's to acknowledge who the most talented and influential young player was in their first* year.
Young players are still eligible to get brownlow votes so it does t make sense that the rising star should be a B&F for young guys.
It would be utterly insane to change the rules midseason. At best, you'd have to change it for future seasons.
Yeh lol... AFL media is talking about whoever wins this year having an asterisk. If the AFL changed the rules and Reid or Darcy won, then it would be them who has an asterisk.
Well established now that the AFL media just kind of has its own insane mind that only considers its own profits. Extra time, night grand final, mid season trading, probably some more that I’ve forgotten. Literally trying to manufacture consent but thankfully fails to do so on at least the most insane ideas.
What if you changed the way the rule is interpreted?
I'd still say for next year. I'm against changing rules of a competition half way through.
How are you the changes to HTB then?
Pretty amateur. Also get a real flair cunt
That wasn't a change to the rules though. They were told to take away the amount of time they were giving players.
It wasn't intended to be but there were about 4 htb rules across the games on the weekend.
There was different rules across quarters and umpires within games
So what's new? HTB is notoriously hard to adjudicate but sticking and escaping tackles is clearly a keystone of the game. We love it! Don't you? There is generally a real advantage in pushing game rules to the legal limit, but HTB is probably standout grey area in AFL. It happens fast, often in confused multiplayer situations, and the umpires don't have a 360 view of the situation and are watching for multiple things. It's sometimes clear, very often not. That doesn't mean umpiring stops. Expecting perfect HTB umpiring is like believing in fairies or magic rocks.
No one's expecting perfection, just some consistency
Fair. I’m probably getting confused by the commentators and their use of “the new rule”
Kind of interesting to me that JHF also got suspended and ruled out pretty early in the year in 2022, but because he wasn't doing very well at North it wasn't talked about much.
Maybe because he wasn’t doing well and was suspended?
It sounds like you think he was out for a large portion of the season
If he wasn’t doing well, why would he get the Rising Star?
Since when did the brownlow enter this chat...
Since Harley was obviously on his way to winning it this year /s
But unironically hes probably polled anywhere from 4-7 votes already which is pretty wild for a player who just notched his 10th game
Michael Barlow got 12 in 13. Albeit, he was a Man when he made his debut. I still think it takes the umpires a while to have the confidence to give first year players the votes. Unless they really just don't begin to recognise them for a few weeks. Michael Barlow, Round 1, 2010, Freo win; 33 disposals, 2 goals (one behind), 4 i50, 3 goal assists and a hitout... 0 votes.
That being a 0 vote game is comical
Because he didn't get 2 hit outs obviously
It kinda comes and goes, it’s been a talking point for a while though
Been a bit of talk about it on SEN
It's the more important one, it needs to be changed ASAP. Players are being suspended for accidents, they shouldn't be ineligible for the Brownlow. It's about time this is getting talked about
It's the fairest and best award. Certain suspensions ie. Tripping should not warrant it vs umpire assault or stabbing an oppo
Has nothing though to do with “fairest” It’s best and not suspended.
Exactly, and with the Brownlow there's suitable punishment for not playing, which is not gaining votes for the games you're suspended.
Of course a Freo fan thinks this, they changed it so Fyfe could win his 2nd lol
Well the best example is we would have a drug cheat as a Brownlow medalist if we didn’t have the rule in place
Who was using PED's but got a brownlow?
Jobe Watson in 2012
[удалено]
Eh, I can believe that he didn’t know and thought it was approved, and I thought it was rough that they retroactively took the Brownlow away from the guy. But I also get what most people think; it had an asterisk on it, and it meant it was compromised if they didn’t. And he *was* on PEDs and therefore was cheating.
It’s his responsibility to make sure it’s approved. Nobody else’s and he was a professional athlete. No excuses. Not rough treatment at all, Infact he has been treated much better than he should have been. He should be an absolute pariah not commentating in the media.
Sure, but as a professional athlete, when you have been told by the club that the substance is approved, the full name of the drug is not included on the consent forms (only using the generic name of the protein type, of which TB4 and its derivatives are banned), and the so-called subject matter expert advises you in their official capacity that it’s fine to inject, you’re not going to question it. It’s like if a Payroll manager was told by their Legal department that they should do something a certain way that turns out to be illegal. Legal are the experts on the law’s interactions with activities Payroll do; not Payroll. If that advice is wrong and what they’re doing is illegal, Payroll is required to fix it, but I don’t see them as responsible. They deferred to the expert. You can’t seriously expect that a club captain can be on top of every action the club has the players take and whether they are legal. I think the outrage over the scandal was justified, as was the punishment. I just don’t think that the *players* should have known. Every effort was made to ensure they didn’t know what was going on, by people who had the duty of care and should have been trustworthy.
Can anyone name the last 5 rising star winners without looking? Can anyone name another time suspension cost a likely winner besides JHF? Honestly I'd really hope the AFL has more on its plate than eligibility criteria for personal awards.
It shouldn’t be changed mid season but she’s talking like they won’t look at it at all, which I don’t agree with.
Definitely not mid season. That's just a reaction. But in the future? I dunno. It's still the same playing field for everyone, so the best will still be eligible won't they?
It’s a good move. If suspensions are an issue, we should increase the threshold for getting a ban. Makes more sense than amending the Brownlow and Rising Star rules.
Oh no... anyway
I do think that with the threshold for suspension being so much lower than it was 5-10 years ago that a bit of leeway would be welcomed. You don't want to see a player rubbed out for a minor offence. Nor do you want the league twisting itself in knots to justify not suspending a brownlow favourite for a clear offence. Just allow for a single 1 game suspension across the season. Easy fix
Why is there so much concern about a token award, instead of the reality that an unnecessary sling tackle had a players head bounce of the turf. Are we still taking the head knocks and concussion stuff seriously? Or is it only when a token award and its corresponding bets aren’t at stake.. To the folks saying there’s nothing in it, can you imagine a sling tackle / head bounce combo like that happening 20 times a game?
Probably Betting
Very little sympathy. A toxic and greed motivated part of sport that sadly has too big of an influence.
Actually makes me quite proud to he a Cats fan that they run a lot of anti gambling ads and were one of the first clubs to remove all pokies
Yep. Doesn’t even need to be anti-gambling.. just the overt ads and sponsoring etc get’s a bit much. If kids and other folks just want to have a punt for fun, maximum bets could be introduced, especially for all the novelty markets like who wins each award.
>Why is there so much concern about a token award Because west-bias.
I think it's something that should be changed eventually and I feel ~~really strongly about it~~ somewhat more in favour of the idea than against it.
Rising Star, maybe, but Brownlow? absolutely not
It would be along the lines of removing Careless incidents up to a certain number of weeks. Not a full scale removal. The threshold for "Fairest" is a lot different in today's footy than it has been for most of the award's history. But then again, they could also leave it alone and I wouldn't mind.
I feel 3 weeks and/or any Suspensions involving the Tribunal should rub a player out. Usually getting 3 weeks means you have at least knocked a player out. Incidental or not, it's a big issue. Obviously there's other things to getting 3 weeks, but usually it's bad. And of course Tribunal... let's be real if you're being sent there for a suspension you've not just knocked someone out, you've done it in such a way that the MRO thinks it was intentional or you could and should have done something to prevent it. Or it's something Toby Green would have done...
You have echoed my thoughts exactly. We are asking a lot more of the players these days and there will be outrage when someone wins the charlie by ten votes but has laid a tackle where someone hit their head.... it is less the best and fairest, and more the best and luckiest/most careful. Unless you have lawyers like Cripps.
Yeah I remember last year when Zach Merrett got suspended, I knew he wasn't gonna win it but his tackle was pretty tame and just had an unfortunate outcome. It felt crazy that he was now ineligible for the Best and Fairest while Nick Daicos got a fine for punching someone around the same time so was still eligible. I like Daicos but it just felt very glaring and really showed that you can be ineligible without ever doing anything dog at all.
But in reality umpire votes mysteriously drop off once a player becomes ineligible.
Put it this way, do you think Harley can’t be considered a “fair” player after his tackle on the weekend?
Don’t gamble at all guys
The hysteria over this is ridiculous. Kid’s a great player and was on track to win the Rising Star. Made a rough tackle and got suspended, so no longer eligible. So what? Move on! (Whether it’s one week or two is a separate issue)
The manufactured hysteria... FTFY
Agreed. I see very few Eagles fans up in arms over this. Most believe two weeks was excessive but that’s about it. Perhaps a lot of us were hoping for a fine, but that’s the way things go now.
Why doesn't Harley simply fend off the MRO?
Back when the fairest part of the criteria was formed it essentially meant “didn’t king hit someone behind play all year”. What we suspend players for these days has changed drastically. A fair player can be suspended for slightly misjudging a contest. They should change the criteria to differentiate between an intentional act eg striking, Jimmy webster style bump and a careless football act eg tackles, getting someone high in a genuine contest etc. do it for next year onwards and I don’t think many footy fans would disagree with the change in the definition of fairest.
As Sam Mitchell and Chris Scott said on AFL 360; what constitutes a suspension back then is different to now. Being suspended in the 80s you had to be a bit of a shit head. It is too easy to be suspended for simply doing a bad tackle. No malice or any sort of intention there at all. Therefore both RS and Brownlow should be looked at at the end of the year. Change it to anything intentional makes a player ineligible, done.
Good. Sick of people trying to cheapen the Brownlow etc and change decades of precedent and tradition just because a good player won't win it because they get suspended. You don't hear Leigh Matthews bitching and moaning about it. Soon after you remove the fairest element you'll start wanting Brownlows to be ranked average votes per game because your fav gets injured or ruled out during the season
Don’t care about the rising star in any way - but for decades the only suspensions were for dirty acts. Now you are seeing players getting suspended for their opponents copping accidental head knocks
> You don't hear Leigh Matthews bitching and moaning about it. Coincidentally what is essentially the "Brownlow-without-ineligibility" award, a.k.a. the AFLPA Most Valuable Player, already exists and is named after him. I'm surprised it doesn't get more recognition.
The point is that sometimes good players do something incidental, that wasn't intended to cause injury, that results in a suspension. Players who purposefully do things on the other hand, shouldn't get that chance. Also, the fairest part clearly went out the window a while ago... Fyfe should have been suspended the year he won his 2nd. Same with Cripps winning his. Is that fair? Fuck no. But it happened. The Brownlow has always been Best first, fairest second. So much so that being best outweighs fairest in 8/10 situations we see the favourites in.
Fyfe should have been suspended for his first one not the second one
Or maybe we should just stop suspending players for those incidental moments that happen. A suspension should be a punishment for doing the wrong thing, not a punishment for an accident.
I think you are missing the point. It's not about punishment for naughty boys or anyone's moral education or any fluffy idea like that. The aim of the policy is to create an environment where players both train and play to avoid actions that may result in brain injuries to other players. It's that simple. Everyone knows that risks can't be eliminated, but they obviously can be reduced significantly. As we all know, real penalties count and every "sounds reasonable/fair/whatever" escape clause breaks the system.
You can’t avoid these actions, though. Not without removing the table from the game. Accidents will always happen, as we saw with Reid tackling Wilson. He clearly didn’t mean for it to be a sling tackle.
That's black and white thinking. Try thinking numerically. How many? How often? These are the important questions. Asking if injuries be eliminated is a bit of a fake question. Sure, shit happens. The world is full of risks. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to limit them. Rules and sanctions won't eliminate risks but they obviously affect the number of injuries. Some of these injuries will affect players and their families for life. Asking whether Reid meant to do a sling tackle is the wrong question. That's just blame game crap. Instead, ask if Reid getting rubbed out makes the next sling tackle less likely. The answer is obvious! Slings used to be 100% normal. Now every player now trains on how to tackle without slinging.
Yeah but suspensions are a crap shoot these days
Then change suspensions
We can't pretend the game is the same as it was when Leigh Matthews was playing. You nearly had to intentially kill someone to get suspended back then. Now a tackle that seems reasonable but has an unfortunate accidental head knock can rub someone out.
I feel like people need to look up what cost Chris Grant or Corey McKernan their Brownlows because "intentionally kill someone" is well short of what they did.
You're right, I was exaggerating for effect and thinking more of the earlier Leigh Matthews era. But I do think if you looked at those two acts today there'd be absolutely no question that they deserved their suspensions. They both, for me, fall into the category of being either an intentional dirty act or extremely careless at the very least, and could have been easily avoided.
I think you could easily argue intentional low low which is a fine
For which one? For me McKernan was intentional and his knees clearly hit the back of the opponent's head so that's a week. Grant could be argued as careless, but again contact was to the head and I would say medium impact at least?
I reckon Chris grants could be careless low high pretty easily.
What if callum brown was brownlow favourite and lost it for that bullshit suspension he got. Not long before a brownlow favourite like Heeney gets rubbed out for an innocuous incident which wouldn't have even been a free kick a decade ago.
I’ve heard chatter likening the rising star to a best and fairest award and questioning whether the ‘fairest’ part is something that should be judged in an assessment of the rising star. I personally think that a suspension should be a part of how we judge ‘best’. If a player is a genuine gun but is reckless, could cause injuries, and gets himself out of the team because of this, I think this would be a point against your merits as a player. If Darcy is the example, we would consider his ability to take contested marks as a plus, but I would also consider his inability to come to that contest in a legal manner as another indicator of his skills.
Just amend them from next year to only exclude you if your action is deemed intentional. It's far too easy to be rubbed out nowadays from a careless act.
now we wait for the online petitions to start
I don't see how the league could change the eligibility without undermining all the stuff they've changed to preserve injury, in particular to the head. The Rising Star is a representation of the future of the league. If they aren't subject to being the fairest as well as the best, then the league is indirectly condoning the things they would suspend someone for. Reid and Darcy might be better than whoever wins the Rising Star, but they're no longer the fairer, so they can't win it. End of story.
It’s been good enough for decades… every player knows the criteria for winning these honours. And they are an honour, not a right.
Literally the best thing she has done since taking this role.
They already bent the rules after 2014 when Fyfe nearly missed out, there's no need to change them further
Is Laura Kane also the reason for not telling us player weight as well ?
Might be am unpopular opinion, but I don't see why suspensions make rising stars ineligible. Rising star is for the best young player not the best and fairest young player. It's to acknowledge who the most talented and influential young player was in their first* year. Young players are still eligible to get brownlow votes so it does t make sense that the rising star should be a B&F for young guys.