If they stopped the 2025 Brownlow Medal count now SUNS captain Noah Anderson may well be near the front, assuming the collective opinion of the AFL coaches is any sort of guide.

This comes after Anderson was judged best afield in a losing SUNS side against GWS in Sydney on Sunday by SUNS coach Damien Hardwick and his GWS counterpart Adam Kingsley.

Having had an equal career-high 42 possessions in the SUNS’ seven-point loss, he received nine votes in the Coaches Association Player of the Year Award.

This took him to outright second on the leaderboard for this prestigious award with 64 votes, two votes behind Geelong’s Bailey Smith (66) and two ahead of Fremantle’s Caleb Serong (59).

Making up the top 10 are the Bulldogs’ Ed Richards (59), Adelaide’s Jordan Dawson and North Melbourne’s Tristan Xerri (58), Melbourne’s Max Gawn (54, Collingwood’s Nick Daicos (53), Port Adelaide’s Connor Rozee (52) and Brisbane’s Hugh McCluggage (51).

But if you convert votes in the coaches’ award to notional 3-2-1 Brownlow Medal votes Anderson (18) would have a narrow lead from Adelaide captain Jordan Dawson (16.5), North Melbourne’s Tristan Xerri (15.75), Fremantle’s Caleb Serong (15.33), Richards (15) and Smith (14.33).

Port’s Zac Butters (13) would be next followed by McCluggage (12.5), Gawn (12), Brisbane’s Lachie Neale (12) and Port’s Connor Rozee (12).

And that’s despite the fact that the SUNS, having played just 13 games, are two behind Brisbane, Geelong and GWS, and one behind the rest of the competition.

Matt Rowell (7) would be next best of the SUNS in the ‘Coachlow’ followed by Touk Miller (5.5) and Jarrod Witts(4.5), Bailey Humphrey (4), Daniel Rioli (3), John Noble (2) and Mac Andrew, Ben Long and Bodhi Uwland (1).

How does the ‘Coachlow Medal’ conversion work?

In the coaches award, in which in each club allocates votes on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis after each game, Anderson (9) led the vote in the game against the Giants from GWS’ Tom Green (7), Humphrey (5), Miller (4), Rowell (3) and GWS’ Finn Callaghan (2).

So, the notional Brownlow Medal votes for the best three players went to Anderson (3), Green (2) and Humphrey (1).

In the event of a tie in the coaches award, the notional 3-2-1 Brownlow Medal votes are split.

Like in the Brisbane game against Geelong, when the coaches awarded eight votes to Brisbane’s Harris Andrews and Logan Morris, and five votes to Brisbane’s Cam Rayner and Will Ashcroft. Andrews and Morris would each receive 2.5 ‘Coachlow’ votes, and Rayner and Ashcroft 0.5.

In 13 games Anderson has featured in the coaches votes nine times, and six times has polled what might be termed ‘major votes - 8-9-10 votes – which are a reasonable pointer to the Brownlow Medal. He has two 10’s, two 9’s and two 8’s, plus a 6 and two 2’s.

Xerri also has polled ‘major votes’ six times, while Dawson has five, and McCluggage,  Gawn, Nick and Josh Daicos, Serong and Fremantle teammate Andrew Brayshaw, and Butters and Rozee four each.

Anderson’s 64 votes in the coaches award is more than the entire West Coast team at 62.

Collectively, on a votes-per-game basis in the coaches award, Collingwood average 22.14 votes to head the count from Brisbane (20.80), Bulldogs (19.79), Fremantle (19.50), Adelaide (18.36), Gold Coast (18.31), Geelong (18.27), Hawthorn (17.14), GWS and Carlton (14.07), Port Adelaide (13.86), Sydney (12.71), Melbourne (12.64), Essendon (12.50), North (11.57), St.Kilda (11.50), Richmond (8.21) and West Coast (4.21).

Anderson’s 42 disposals against the Giants, which included 15 contested possessions and came with two goals and seven clearances, equalled his 42 against Geelong in Darwin last year, and is equal 9^th on the all-time SUNS list of most possessions in a game.

Gary Ablett Jnr has the top five outright – 53-49-45-45-45 – and two 43’s to match the best of Sam Flanders, while Anderson now has two 42’s to match that of Ablett (three times) and Dion Prestia.

Averaging 30.85 disposals a game this year to rank third in the League behind Smith (32.00) and Tom Green (30.93), Anderson is up from a previous best of 28.96 last year after going at 26.91ppg in 2023, 26.14 in 2022 and 22.65 in 2021.

He also ranks 5^th in the League this year for average clearances (7.54), 9^th for contested possessions (13.23), 8^thfor uncontested possessions (18.23) and 7^th for inside 50s (5.77).

In his first season as SUNS captain and the youngest captain in the league, he is the only player in the Top 10 for contested possessions and uncontested possessions.

Also, Anderson averages three tackles a game to rank 7^th at the SUNS behind Rowell (8.15), Humphrey (4.54), Will Graham (4.00), Miller and Witts (3.85) and Nick Holman (3.75), and is ranked 2^nd at the SUNS for goal assists at 0.92 per game, behind only Humphrey (1.08) and ahead of Ben Ainsworth (0.83), Rowell (0,69) and Flanders and Long (0.67).