MVP 2024 Nick "426" Smith Memorial Trophy Leader-Board | Gawn wins for a record-equaling 4th time

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FootyGuy13

FootyGuy13

That Guy in the Back Corner
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Feb 21, 2018
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It's the 2024 edition of the Melbourne Board's MVP main thread; the Nick "426" Smith Memorial Trophy. If we thought that 2022 was disappointing, 2023 managed to out do it in SPADES (both here AND on-field). Then we thought that 2023 was disappointing, and we had to watch as a slow news summer turned into daily updates to see what Clayton Oliver was having for breakfast. That was before the whole Joel Smith drug drama started to kick-off. Legit had to wait for the pre-season to show up for footy journalists to remember other teams existed.

Will this affect Oliver's end-of-season 426 position after so many years of finishing Top 3? Maybe, and at the moment I'd say that Petracca already has one hand on the 426 trophy. Though, based on last year's results, I reckon Rivers has a good chance of creating an upset this year. Last year's upset winner Viney is experience some of the best footy form he's ever seen and I hope it continues. Both him and May are our brick walls and I wonder how many batterings they have left before the holes appear. It'll also be interesting to see if Gawn continues his downward spiral now that he's the solo ruck again, not to mention trying to predict where these players replacements are gonna come from.


Now, after last year's mixed bag of a 426 season, I've decided to re-work the rules after a trend emerged. I was finding that it was quite the annoying trend, and hopefully this change will stop it from happening. So here's is the rules and framework for voting for each round.

"Please give out 12 votes to all of the best players in this game in your opinion in any fashion you like. Maximum 12. Minimum 12. You can award a negative set (won't be counted) in addition to a positive set if you want to vent. You have 3 days to vote."

Honour Roll (Bluey Truscott placings)

2023 - Jack Viney (2nd)
2022 - Clayton Oliver (1st)
2021 - Christian Petracca (2nd)
2020 - Christian Petracca (1st)
2019 - Max Gawn (=1st)
2018 - Max Gawn (1st)
2017 - Clayton Oliver (1st)
2016 - Max Gawn (3rd)
2015 - Tom McDonald (3rd)
2014 - Nathan Jones (1st)
2013 - Nathan Jones (1st)
2012 - Nathan Jones (1st)
2011 - Jack Trengove (5th)
2010 - Brad Green (1st)
2009 - Aaron Davey (1st)
2008 - Brad Green (3rd)*
2007 - Nathan Jones (2nd)
2006 - Brock McLean (3rd)
2005 - Brent Moloney (3rd)
2004 - Adem Yze (3rd)
2003 - Abandoned after Round 3
2002 - Adem Yze (6th)
2001 - Started in Round 10​
 
Round O v Sydney
10 - Jack Viney (88)
9 - Steven May (49)
8 - Bayley Fritsch (16)
7 - Blake Howes (15)
6 - Alex Neal-Bullen (14)

Round 1 v Bulldogs
10 - Clayton Oliver (53)
9 - Max Gawn (48)
8 - Steven May (44)
7 - Jack Billings (28)
6 - Jack Viney (11)

Round 2 v Hawks
10 - Christian Petracca (73)
9 - Alex Neal-Bullen (34)
8 - Bayley Fritsch (34)
7 - Kysaiah Pickett (26)
6 - Max Gawn (10)

Round 3 v Power
10 - Alex Neal-Bullen (82)
9 - Max Gawn (33)
8 - Jake Lever (23)
7 - Jack Viney (21)
6 - Ben Brown (17)

Round 4 v Crows
10 - Judd McVee (55)
9 - Chris Petracca (54)
8 - Steven May (37)
7 - Caleb Windsor (19)
6 - Jake Lever (10)

Round 5 v Brisbane
10 - Tom McDonald (53)
9 - Max Gawn (44)
8 - Kade Chandler (31)
7 - Jake Lever (17)
6 - Trent Rivers (6)

Leader Board after Round 5
1713775091302.png

Round 6 v The Bye

​
 
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So before we go over the season's results, I thought I'd try to see who is considered the favourite to win the 426 for the year. For this, I went through the results of this year's most prominent voters to see who they ended up thinking was the most and least deserving of results going their way. These posters gave out the most votes out of anyone meaning it should be an accurate window that'll show what the board's consensus is.

First, let's look at who these posters thought was the most underrated player for the season:
Clayton Oliver - 1
Kysaiah Pickett - 1
Ed Langdon - 1
Steven May - 1
Max Gawn - 1
Alex Neal-Bullen - 1
Tom McDonald - 1
Kade Chandler - 1

Not a single person from this group agreed on who was the most underrated player. Everyone had their player that they would give an unusually high amount of votes compared to the other 7. It's also an odd array of high and low-scoring players that's ended up on each poster's nice list.

Next, we have the list of players voted the most overrated:
Ed Langdon - 2
Kysaiah Pickett - 2
Max Gawn - 1
Jack Billings - 1
Caleb Windsor - 1
Tom McDonald - 1

Again, there's a majority of posters having a unique opinion on the most overrated player. Ed Langdon and Kysaiah Pickett are the only players with multiple votes, but it's hard to figure out if it's because the posters didn't value their contributions or if their favourite players were getting the lion's share of the votes.

Finally, we have who they think will be the 426 winner:
Max Gawn - 5
Kysaiah Pickett - 2
Tom McDonald - 1

There's the consensus we've been looking for, no surprise though for who is the favourite to win the 426. Max Gawn not only has 5 of the 8 posters in his corner, but the other 3 also have him in their Top 3. This makes Max Gawn the only person in all 8 poster's Top 3 in what was yet another good season from the AA ruck.

Well, that's a good place to start, here's a more thorough look.
1729079366536.png
Demon Attack Headless jhong Dancing Potato PerfectFooty Scythe94 Toump A11dAtP0w3R
 
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Before I got distracted with a bunch of everything else, this is what the standings were:
Round 5.png

Terrible games against the Swans and Lions were bookended by an alright month of footy with the usual early season win against the Dogs, smashing the Hawks before they got good before the week-long trip to Adelaide saw two away wins against the Power and Crows.

At the first bye, Max Gawn was in familiar territory on top of the Leader Board to win his first Fast Starter Award since 2018-2019 while Alex Neal-Bullen had already scored enough points for 2024 to be one of his best seasons. Viney continued his form from 2023 to be in the Top 5 while the Defence Brickwall in May and Lever was keeping the scoreboard damage to a minimum.

Petracca had a slow start by his standards, Fritsch was still our best forward despite the gameplan, McDonald showed signs of a resurgence, McVee was making a stand to be the team's best young player while Oliver was the lowest scorer of the main 4 with only 1 scoring game to his name.​
 
Following the bye, Melbourne would enjoy wins over both Richmond and Geelong to sit inside the Top 4 once again. Once again, BigFooty board members would be left wondering and bickering about how the Demons were able to consistently do this despite the efforts on and off the field from players and coaches alike being far from Top 4 material aside from a few glimpses of quality here and there.

After a case of too-little, too-late against the Blues and getting pants by a first-year player at the Eagles, the Demons would go on to score their 2nd highest for the season thus far against the Saints, proving that it wasn't a fluke that Narrm hit triple-digits earlier in the season (are maybe it was considering what would happen a week later against the Dockers in Alice Springs).

And so, the home-and-away season hit its halfway mark and the Demons were going at their usual pace of little-to-no urgency even though Melbourne was now outside the 8. With that, the standings were looking like this:
Round 12.gif

Max Gawn had continued to stay on top in what was looking to be another AA Blazer to add to the wardrobe, while Steven May was also going to have another Top 5 finish. Christian Petracca had reached 3rd place where I'm sure nothing bad would happen to him next round while Alex Neal-Bullen and Jake Lever were doing enough to be in the conversation for a rare podium finish.

McDonald was just outside the Top 5 with over double the amount of points he had scored over the past 2 years, McVee was starting to get noticed by the wider footy community, Pickett jumped to 8th place to knock Oliver out while Viney and Fritsch rounded out the Top 10 after falling down the order.

Yeah, you know what game is next, time to see how much it shook up the standings.​
 
Man, I thought I ended up having a bad day on King's Birthday. One emergency surgery and a 38-point loss later, Melbourne and its fans got a much needed-break and came out the other side almost choking the lead against bottom-dwellers North. This was followed by actually choking the lead against the Lions because the Dees never seem to take the right learnings from their weekly games. Couple of wins against West Coast and Essendon though, even though all joy had already been taken out of the season.

With Petracca having some time off from playing footy, the list of consistent contributors also got given a shake-up:
Round 18.gif

While Gawn and May had the Top 2 spots locked down, and Neal-Bullen got to go up one spot by default, the big mover was Trent Rivers who went from 20th to 4th in the space of just 5 games. A 3-way tie for 5th place between McVee, McDonald and Petracca (not to mention Pickett, Viney and Lever all being within a game of 5th) meant that it was anyone's game to finish the season in the Top 5 and that someone could be given Best-on-Ground honours and shoot up 6 spots even at this late stage of the season.

6 rounds to go and a season that further goes off the rails, with Gawn out injured for who knows how long, is there someone who can cause an upset in the rankings before the season is over?​
 
Round 19 and no one who had been in the Top 10 scored any points in the loss to Freo so we move onto the game against the Giants where Melbourne only got close at the end because the other team stopped trying (a pattern that shows up with the Giants later in the season). With Gawn still not scoring points for the 5th week in a row, this could be the opening that sees Neal-Bullen and Rivers win the 426. Neal-Bullen is already on his way to double his career total and Rivers is hoovering up the points ever since Petracca left.

Round 20.gif ​
 
Round 21 and we were once again subjected to having front-row seats to The Marcus Bontempelli Show. What was once a wide-open door to be the 426 winner a week ago became Gawn having one hand on the trophy after getting back to his scoring ways. We also had Trent Rivers reach equal 2nd place after scoring 60 points since Petracca went down and entering the Top 10 was Jacob van Rooyen who was also enjoying a good patch of form since the mid-year bye-round.

Round 21.gif ​
 
Round 22 and even with strangling the life out of the contest, Melbourne still managed to choke a lead. This time we gave Port Adelaide their 3rd lowest winning score of all time! We also saw Alex Neal-Bullen enter the Top 2 in what was a very unprecedented season from him, Ed Langdon was enjoying some late-season football to get him inside the Top 10 while Judd McVee was on the edge of leaving the Top 10 despite having the most 10-point games.

Round 22.gif

Of course, there is one other thing this game determined...​
 

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He did it in 2016, he did it in 2018, he did it in 2019! Now, for a record-equalling 4th time, I give you the 426 winner of 2024...

MAX GAWN
imagerender


Despite everything that has happened to this club, the players and especially with how much that has been thrown has been self-inflicted, Max Gawn has been the one constant that we can rely on who will go down as a club legend when Gawn retires in 10 years. Fun Fact: Max Gawn has always won the 426 when he scores more than 65 points in a season. Gawn has also always been the winner whenever he's finished inside the Top 4.

This win sees Max Gawn tie with Nathan Jones for most 426 wins. While Gawn still needs another 300 points to reach Jones' career tally of points, Gawn already has the record for the most 10-point games. It also continues the streak of only Gawn, Oliver, Viney and Petracca winning the 426 for a 9th season.​
 
Round 23 and Melbourne finally got another win, even though it was against a Suns outfit that had already done their annual cliff dive. The game's results saw Petracca get booted out of the Top 10 after 10 weeks of not playing along with Judd McVee is quite the surprising turn of events. We also have Jack Viney within 10 points of equal-3rd which I'm sure will happen and validate the Bluey Truscott results.
Round 23.gif

Also, with the game, Ed Langdon was confirmed the best player of the last 6 rounds and the winner of the Late Bloomer Award. With all the inside bulls in the team, Langdon gives the Dees some much needed pace in the middle and he must be hitting targets as well if he's scoring regular points (or maybe it's that Langdon doesn't infuriate people like others do).
This is the first arbitary award Langdon has won.
​
 
Round 24, the season is finally over and Melbourne play like they're over the season too. Gawn gets triple-digits at last, Neal-Bullen gets within a game of double his career tally before going to Adelaide while Rivers and May share the 3rd-place podium in a tale of 2 halves.

Pickett gets his best finish in the 426 ever, McDonald gets his best finish since 2018, Viney's 7th place is the worst finish for the Bluey Truscott winner ever (beating Vince's 4th place in 2015 and Viney himself in 2016) with good results from Langdon, van Rooyen and Lever rounding out the Top 10.

Round 24.gif ​
 
Here is the final leaderboard:
2024.png

Thank you all for voting, even after I put in the stipulation that you had to use all of your available votes, and especially thank you for the 3 people who voted every round (Demon Attack Headless and jhong) plus the others who voted in at least 20 rounds (Dancing Potato PerfectFooty Scythe94 Toump A11dAtP0w3R).

I don't have that much to say this year, probably because I was managing to find other things to do during the season and I probably left the reveal of the winner a bit late. I do hope to see you guys in the vote threads again and I'll see if I can be a bit more active on the board. Until then, see ya!​
 
Brilliant as always, FootyGuy13. Thanks for all your work this year x
 

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MVP 2024 Nick "426" Smith Memorial Trophy Leader-Board | Gawn wins for a record-equaling 4th time

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