The Premiership Medal conundrum

Not for the first time, a regular and significant contributor through the season has missed out on a Premiership Medal courtesy of an untimely injury. Also not for the first time, a player with barely a handful of games is elevated into the Grand Final team and secures a Premiership Medal

Matthew Stokes — 18 games, 27 goals in home-and-away matches for 2009 — could legitimately have expected to have secured a place in the team for the Grand Final but for an injury a couple of weeks prior. As it stands, his compensation for his efforts is a mention by Captain Tom Harley in his comments on the dais.

Brad Ottens, by way of contrast, played 3 home-and-away games and 3 finals to secure his Medal.

Teammates know the players who have contributed through the year, as do clubs and their supporters. Nevertheless, I think it's past time that the AFL looked at setting a benchmark that a player who plays, say, 40% of home and away and finals games for the winning club, should receive a Premiership Medal irrespective of participating in the Grand Final.

It's pretty easy to mount a case, in the example above, that Stokes did more across the season to get Geelong into a Grand final-winning position than did Ottens.

The same might also apply for Runners Up medals.