Duff's 2002 Norm Smith Medal Voting Controversy! (29.09.2026)

Mark Duffield (0:00)

Welcome back to the SENWA studio out here at Optus Stadium on this Tuesday morning. 17.2 degrees outside at the moment, building to a top of 20 with some showers later in the day. So Heta, I said this off the top.

So I had a Norm Smith Medal voting experience.

SPEAKER_2 (0:16)

Yes.

Mark Duffield (0:16)

The year was 2002 The combatants were Collingwood and Brisbane. And back then, they asked us to vote before the 20 minute mark of the last quarter.

Now, when they came around to get my votes, Collingwood had the momentum, and it looked like they were going to cause a boil over and beat the Brisbane Lions in a grand final. I'd kind of been updating my best players quarter by quarter. And what I got to at the... It was about the 18 minute mark of the last quarter when the young lady that was coming around and collecting the votes tapped me on the shoulder and said, we need your votes now.

I had four in a line. So I had Nathan Buckley, Anthony Rocker, who'd kicked four goals, Michael Voss, and Nigel Lappin.

And I kind of made a mistake in that, because it was a low scoring game and Rocker had already kicked four, I thought if he kicks five, he's probably best on ground. So I've got to have him in the votes. I felt at the time I voted that Buckley was the one who had had the greatest influence. And I felt that Lappin was slightly ahead of Voss at that point in time. After I voted now, Voss did basically what Ashcroft did on the weekend, and I didn't have him in the votes. Buckley won the medal. Robert Walls, who was also on the panel, voted the same way as I did. A few others had, I think everyone pretty much chose from the same four players that I had, but they had them all in different orders, and Voss came up short. There was an outcry. I spent all Sunday on the phone answering calls as to why did you vote the way you voted, by various media types. So I know how the voting panelists feel about the whole Shay Bolton thing.

And I have to say, I've been reluctant to go on voting panels like that ever since, because it's kind of like you're there to do a job, and it kind of takes away from the job that you're doing. You do have to pay a lot of attention to it. And I think that probably if they were just sitting there relaxing, they might not have had the attention to detail. But having said that, if Shay Bolton, Shay Bolton kicks 0-2, if he kicks 2-0, he probably is the Norm Smith Medalist. And Fremantle probably wins the game, because he was exceptional in all other facets of the game. So that's how narrow the margins are. So I empathise with them, but I also disagree with them. He wouldn't have been my Norm Smith Medalist.

SPEAKER_2 (3:02)

And it changed from that year on, didn't it, because of what happened? Yeah, they actually changed it.

Mark Duffield (3:07)

So they stopped haranguing the voters into voting so early in the piece. And I think what had happened, what had lulled them into a sense of security, there had been so many one-sided grand finals at that point, you pretty much knew who was winning the Norm Smith quite early, by halfway through the last quarter. And like it was on Saturday, a guy from the losing team won the medal. We gave it to Nathan Buckley.

SPEAKER_2 (3:35)

Did you ever talk about it with Buckley?

Mark Duffield (3:40)

We might have had a discussion about it at some stage. When he was, I think, I was working in Melbourne at that time, and I was still working in Melbourne the next year.

And I used to run into Nathan occasionally, and might have had a brief discussion with him, but I don't think we discussed it in any great detail. I don't think he was that happy about winning it. Yeah, because you sort of go, oh yeah, I got the medal that I didn't want, and I didn't get the one that I did want.

SPEAKER_2 (4:06)

Yeah, he was there to do it as a team, and then you get put up as a solo player.

One from Kelvin in Ashland before we take a break. Prior to the Grand Final, Brisbane's coaching staff would have certainly instructed their players to take all necessary risks once the game got to a point where they needed to score quickly. They wouldn't have told them to switch on as soon as the margin got to 17 points, but whenever the one and only Woffey time bells were activated, that would be a time to become ultra alert and affordable collective firestarter, says Kelvin.