Mornings with Mark Duffield FULL SHOW (22.09.2026)

Mark Duffield (0:00)

Hello, everybody, welcome to the SENWA Radio Studio. We're out here at Optus Stadium. It is a Tuesday morning in Perth, and we are here thanks to Beaumont Homes' award-winning design, built to be loved forever. It's gonna be sunny in Perth again today, a top of 22 degrees, made in WA for WA. This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA.

So, Collingwood superstar, Nick Dacos, is our 2026 Brownlow medallist, and it is hard to argue with that. He started the count, the hottest of Brownlow favourites in recent memory.

After Marcus Bontempelli, Zach Butters and Bailey Smith polled well enough to keep things interesting for the first half of the count, Dacos bolted clear as we expected him to. With three rounds still to go, he was 10 votes clear, could not be caught, and he polled maximum votes in the last two rounds just to punctuate a record breaking win. There weren't many great anomalies in this count. The favourite one, other fancy players finished well. So Dacos finished with 47 votes, which is a record. He polled in 18 of the 23 games, which surely also has to be a record.

In Dacos' short but remarkable career, he has had podium finishes in the last four Brownlow medals, winning this one, finishing second last year, second in 2024 and third in 2023, which was just his second year in the competition. He is a four-time All-Australian in just five seasons in the competition. And some would say it should have been five All-Australians from five after his stellar year playing in defence for Collingwood in 2022

There is always debate in footy over who the best players are, but Dacoss has all but settled those debates now.

The best players tend to change the game, and it feels like Dacoss at just 23 years of age, and albeit aided by changes in the AFL's rules, has changed the game. In 2022, Collingwood used his ball use off halfback to propel themselves into an AFL preliminary final from 17th on the ladder the previous season. It was his ability to kick the ball at a level few players could match that split apart opposition team and zone defences, and it led to the Magpies playing an irresistible brand of attacking footy that enabled a series of come from behind wins. Against Collingwood, no lead was safe, and teams learnt the hard way against the Magpies that if you led, you had to keep attacking. If you tried to shut the game down, Nick Dacos, brother Josh, Steel Sidebottom, Scott Pendlebury and others would still find a way through your team defence and they would mow down leads. Dacos did it by taking on and pulling off kicks that other mere mortals could not, would not or should not try. He would bite off kicks back inside the corridor even if he had to chip them over an opponent's head to hit a teammate. And this is how he changed the game. Dacos' father, Peter, of course, is a Collingwood legend himself, a key figure in the Pies' drought-breaking Premiership of 1990 when he kicked a remarkable 97 goals as a small forward. He was one of the game's most brilliant and best kicks.

So Nick Dacos is actually living proof that kicking is one of the skills in footy that is pretty much hereditary. Because who teaches you to kick? Your dad does. Both Nick and brother Josh are brilliant kicks of the football.

A few other observations about this Brownlow. Western Bulldog star Marcus Bontempelli finished third. It was his third podium finish in a Brownlow, his sixth top 10 finish. Now, don't get me wrong, Dacos is a more than worthy winner of this Brownlow, but I do feel for the Bont. For much of the past seven years, he has been widely regarded as the game's preeminent footballer. He still hasn't won a Brownlow. He has a flag. He has played in a grand final since the 2016 flag, but I think many of us feel like he's at least one Brownlow short. The Dacos had four players, Luke Jackson, Shay Bolton, Murphy Reed, Caleb Sarong, in the top 30 of this count. That is a reflection of the club's dominant season. The top vote getter was Jackson on 19, which is a reflection, A, on the evenness of contributions across the player group, and also that Ruckman tend to poll unders. The club polled a total of 100 votes, only the Sydney Swans polled more, they polled 102 At West Coast, Harley Reed, of course, he was suspended, but he finished on 15 votes. The only eagle the umpire has really noticed, the club polled a total of just 31 It is a reminder that Harley needs more strong allies and he needs them quickly. 487 736 736 That is the text line. Give us your thoughts and questions. 13 12 55 is the Barra and Doday open line. Barra and Doday because the little things are everything. And let's get on to Four Thoughts now on sport to get us rolling this morning. Thought one still on the Brownlow.