Really, we should have seen Matt Rowell’s record-breaking vote blitz of the 2025 Brownlow Medal vote count coming.
Remember the start of his career? In his second, third and fourth career games in 2020 the then 18-year-old polled three-three-three votes against West Coast, Adelaide and Fremantle.
He shared the lead in the medal count at the time with Brisbane’s eventual winner Lachie Neale.
It was juicy entrée to Rowell’s extraordinary seven-vote win in the game’s highest individual award on Monday night.
He polled 37 votes, the second-highest tally in history behind only Patrick Cripps’ winning total of 45 for Carlton last year.
This smashed Gary Ablett’s SUNS record of 28 votes in 2013 in the third leg of his 2011-12-13-14 vote feast in which he polled 23-24-28-22 votes.
Rowell became the first player in history to poll three votes in each of his first four games of a season, when he was judged best afield against West Coast and Melbourne away, Adelaide at home and North Melbourne in the Barossa.
And then, from Round 15 to Round 22, he polled in eight games in a row.
At Round 18, when he had 29 votes, he already had enough to at least share the medal with Collingwood’s Nick Daicos. And he still had six games to play.
SUNS captain Noah Anderson polled 25 votes to finish sixth, behind Rowell (39), Daicos (32), Geelong’s Bailey Smith (29), Adelaide’s Jordan Dawson (27) and Fremantle’s Andrew Brayshaw (26), and equal with the Bulldogs’ Marcus Bontempelli (25) and Fremantle’s Caleb Serong (25).
Appropriately, Anderson, sitting next to Rowell at the count in Melbourne, was on hand to help the stunned winner to put his suit coat back on before heading to the stage for the celebration.
The pair, best mates since junior days, combined for 64 votes in what is a record for two players at the same club in the same year.
They polled 3-2 votes four times, both polled in the same game eight times, and in 23 games there were only three in which one of their pair did not figure.
An emotional Rowell, genuinely caught short for words initially, expressed his love for his family, saying “they mean everything to me – we are very close and always will be.”
He told how as a kid he was always kicking the ball around the front yard at home with his father. And if his father wasn’t around he’d drag his mother out there.
“She’s a left-footer, not a bad kick,” he said to a loud audience laugh.
And he expressed his high regard for his captain when he said, “I love playing with him – and I love him as a bloke. We won a premiership together at school, and now we want to a win a premiership together in the AFL.”
Touk Miller (12) was next best of the SUNS from Ben King (7), John Noble (4), Sam Flanders (3), Jarrod Witts (3), Sam Collins (2), Bailey Humphrey (2), Brayden Fiorini (1) and Ben Long (1).
The SUNS total vote of 95 was third-best in the league behind grand finalists Geelong (99) and Brisbane (98), ahead of minor premiers Adelaide (93), and smashed the club’s previous best of 75 votes in 2022.
The club polled 45 times overall – up from 37 in 2022. And they polled 17 three-vote ratings – up on the 13 of 2022.
Rowell polled in 16 games. Only twice in history has a player polled more often – Daicos polled 18 times in 2024 to finish runner-up to Cripps, who polled 17 times. Port’s Ollie Wines polled 16 times to win in 2021.
And Rowell’s 1.70 votes per game average on Monday night is third best all-time behind Cripps’ 1.96vpg in 2024 and Lachie Neale’s 1.82vpg to win for Brisbane in the 17-game Covid season of 2020.
The bullocking SUNS #18 split his votes across 10 opposition clubs, polling 3-2 against minor premiers Adelaide and Melbourne, and 2-2 against Carlton and Essendon.
He polled three votes against Brisbane, GWS, North, Sydney, Western Bulldogs and West Coast, two votes against Hawthorn, and one against Richmond.
And he polled 14 votes in nine games at People First Stadium, five votes in the SUNS’ home-away-from-home in Darwin, and 14 votes in 12 games away.
Rowell’s eight-game voting streak bettered the club’s previous best of six by Ablett in 2013, and the five-games streaks of Ablett in 2012 and Anderson in 2023.
His run of four consecutive three-vote ratings betters that of Ablett in 2012-13, Anderson in 2023, Aaron Hall in 2016 and his own brilliant run in 2020.
Anderson polled 11 times – up from eight times in 2023.
Rowell’s massive haul this year saw him jump to second place of the SUNS’ vote list all-time. He has 89 votes to trail Ablett (122) and head Anderson (83), Miller (74), Tom Lynch (32), Aaron Hall (27), Harley Bennell (26), David Swallow (25), Dion Prestia (23) and King (7).
Humphrey polled in the medal the first time in Round 7 against Sydney, when his 18 possessions and four goals at People First Stadium earned him two votes,
Sam Collins also doubled his career tally with two votes in Round 21 against Richmond at People First Stadium, when he led a SUNS defence that held the Tigers to two goals.
