BROWNLOW LOWDOWN

You know things have changed in the world of AFL football when last night the main concern of Chris Judd, the young man from the Eagles who had just won the Brownlow – on national television – was about whether or not the double-sided tape would keep his partner’s nipples from being exposed ON national television.

And she became so excited that prospect came close. Very close.

But that’s the sort of night it was. In the leadup to the medal count the Ten Network cobbled together a red carpet special that needed four female commentators, Jo Silvagni, Sam Lane, Christi Malthouse and Sandra Sully.

They all looked pretty and coiffed and glamorous. Call me a curmudgeon though but I am not sure that Sandra Sully, Ten’s late night national newsreader doesn’t sully her reputation as a credible news anchor by doing such fluff. But then, who am I to talk, having appeared in the Wog Boy movie and played a gay prison governor who fancied Shane Crawford in The House of Bulger.

Winner Judd’s girlfriend, Rebecca Twigley, is beautiful and she looked stunning in a plunging neckline that gave a whole new meaning to the word “low" in Brownlow.

Now that Judd has won a Brownlow -- at the young age of 21 and after only being in the AFL since 2002 – there will be heaps of pressure and wads of dollars to get him back to hometown Melbourne after he was drafted to Perth. I wouldn’t blame the Eagles tactical team if they helped matchmake with Rebecca to give him an even better reason for staying there.

I thought the night was exciting even though Judd was a bolter and had, I think, 16 votes at the halfway mark. Last year’s winner, Adelaide’s Mark Ricciuto made it a race when he started to haul him in but the early lead proved too much and Judd romped home 30 to 23. The interstate onslaught continued with Port Adelaide’s Chad Cornes garnered 22 points to come in third.

Imagine it? Two South Australians totaled 45 points between them.

Anybody who doesn’t believe that Australian Rules is now AUSTRALIAN Rules and not Victorian Rules is a sporting Luddite.

I thought my colleague Neil Mitchell’s paranoid and parochial column in the Herald Sun today was blinkered and bizarre. Leigh Matthews one of the greatest players and coaches of all-time who won four Grand Finals at Hawthorn and broke Collingwood’s agonizing marathon Grand Final victory drought as coach in 1990 (not to mention winning the last three flags for Brisbane) said yesterday that if the game had not gone national it would now be regarded as “a shitpot” little affair.

If you accepted the Mitchell argument then golf would never have left Scotland.

And a final Brownlow observation. The girl almost wearing a pink dress in the fans’ bleachers behind Jo and Sandra for the red carpet special. By the end of it I reckon we had seen more of her than her gyno.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004