If you’ve followed our Player Rankings, you’d be familiar with the ongoing Player of the Season leaderboard.
An unorthodox approach to judging the game’s best player, instead of attributing votes on a game by game basis, The Sporting Landscape attributed points on a round by round basis.
This was done through the weekly Player Rankings, whereby the 10 best players of each round where ranked; with 1st receiving 10 points, 2nd nine points, and 3rd eight points, all the way through to 10th who received one point.
It was a method that proved to favour explosive players and gamebreakers who can put in really big performances sporadically, as opposed to consistently solid showings.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Round 23 Player Rankings
Now let’s dive into the results.
The Brownlow Medal favourite, Marcus Bontempelli took home first place by a convincing 26 points. His blend of consistency and explosiveness was tailored to the scoring system, and many will agree he was the best player this season.
Darcy Parish came in second, and may raise a few eyebrows finishing so high after his purple patch dropped off, but he was the best player in the game over his peak four-week period, even challenging Bontempelli for top spot at one stage.
Clayton Oliver rounded out the podium, stealing third from teammate Christian Petracca in the final game of the season. Not many will dispute that.
A lot of people would’ve expected Dayne Zorko to finish lower than fifth, but he tended to fly under the radar and his best was as good as anyone.
Enjoy the Player Rankings this season?
Click here to subscribe to our newsletter and get The Sporting Landscape straight to your inbox!
Ollie Wines, Sam Walsh, Jack Steele, Dustin Martin and Max Gawn rounded out the top 10, with the fancied Touk Miller coming in at 11th.
With only 10 players registering points each week, the impact of missing games was minimal, evidenced by the 13th place finish of Patrick Dangerfield who missed nine games.
One player that undoubtedly deserved a higher ranking was Coleman Medalist Harry McKay, coming in at just 26th. While consistent three or four goal performances advanced his goalkicking tally, it often wasn’t enough to register in the top 10 players of the round.
See the full top 30 below.
Player of the Season Top 30
Comments