It was another masterclass from Nick Daicos on Thursday night as he retained top spot on our Brownlow leaderboard after Round 6, while a $26 chance has surged into our top eight for the first time this season, jumping into fourth place.
Brownlow Leaderboard - Round 6
| Rank | Name | Team | Votes | Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nick Daicos | Coll | 12.81 | $3.00 |
| 2 | Zak Butters | PA | 11.62 | $15 |
| 3 | Bailey Smith | Gee | 9.69 | $6.00 |
| 4 | Harry Sheezel | NM | 9.34 | $26 |
| 5 | Jai Newcombe | Haw | 8.57 | $34 |
| 6 | Marcus Bontempelli | WB | 8.36 | $5.00 |
| 7 | Christian Petracca | GC | 7.90 | $15 |
| 8 | Clayton Oliver | GWS | 7.71 | $151 |
Best Bet
It’s line-ball between Nick Daicos and Bailey Smith as our best bet, but I’m leaning to the Magpie for at least one more week.
Daicos looks an absolute certainty to secure three votes in Collingwood’s win over Carlton, and now gets Essendon on Anzac Day with the Magpies set to start hot favourites. If Collingwood win again, you’d expect Daicos to be right in the mix for another two or three votes.
What separates Daicos from the chasing pack is that there is no one else in this Collingwood side likely to consistently take votes off him across the season.
Lay
I’ll go as far as saying Marcus Bontempelli won’t win the Brownlow this season.
The Bulldogs left Geelong battered, including Bont himself, but the bigger issue is that wins may not come as easily as anticipated a few weeks ago.
The next fortnight is tough with Sydney and Fremantle to come, and despite the Bulldogs sitting 4-2, we have Bont just sixth on our leaderboard while the bookmakers still have him as second favourite.
Value Bet
Injuries have derailed GWS’ season, but could they make a run over the next month?
The Giants host North Melbourne in Canberra in Round 7, then face Gold Coast before taking on Essendon and West Coast.
If GWS can win three of those four, Clayton Oliver could quickly come into Brownlow calculations. He sits eighth on our leaderboard with 7.71 votes, ranks fourth in the AFL for disposals per game, and more importantly sits third for contested possessions per game.
The Voting System - Why We Use a Weighted Average Approach
We use a weighted average system for Brownlow voting to improve accuracy and fairness in assessing player performances. The traditional 3-2-1 method limits vote allocations to whole numbers, often forcing a clear distinction between players whose performances may have been nearly identical. By contrast, our weighted system allows for decimal-based scoring (e.g. 2.5, 1.5, 0.5), providing a more nuanced reflection of each player’s impact on the game.
This approach maintains the same total vote count per game (six votes) but offers greater flexibility in how those votes are distributed. As a result, it reduces arbitrary decision-making and captures subtle performance differences more effectively. Ultimately, this leads to more precise predictions and a leaderboard that better mirrors how games are perceived by fans, analysts and the broader football community.
