Brownlow Medal wins don’t happen overnight.
And only rarely do they happen on the back of one magical season.
Many different elements go into structuring a win on the league’s night of nights; some tangible, some inconspicuous to the naked eye.
In the 21st century, only two Magpies have saluted with the ‘Chas’ around their neck on the first Monday of Grand Final week.
Club legend Nathan Buckley did it back in 2003 – standing on the dais alongside fierce rivals Marc Ricciutto and Adam Goodes in a rare three-way tie – while Dane Swan became the second after a runaway victory in 2011.
15 years on, Nick Daicos is aiming to become the third.
Having been right in contention for the last three counts, 2026 looms as perhaps his best chance to date to take home the top gong, with the wunderkind having already ticked off many of the pre-requisites required for a traditional win.
All the ingredients, which both Buckley and Swan collated in the lead up to their Brownlow triumphs are there. Now that all that remains is the voting.
We’ve come up with four factors and trawled through the history of the Pies pair’s wins and the broader league trends, to see how Daicos stacks up ahead of Monday’s count.
Strong voting history
Perhaps the most crucial element to one day taking out the Brownlow Medal is having a strong voting history.
Both Buckley and Swan, who won the award in their 11th and 10th seasons respectively, were consistent challengers and strong pollers in the years leading up to their eventual triumphs.
Buckley had finished on the podium twice before he went all the way in 2003, finishing runner up to St Kilda’s Robert Harvey in 1998 and then running third in 1999 behind Shane Crawford and Mark Mercuri.
The Magpies skipper polled 24 and then 20 votes in those two counts, before notching 18, 14 and 14 in the 2000-02 Brownlows to continue his consistent run of polling.
It was that body of work, that set up his three-way win in ’03 with 22 votes.
The Pies finished second, with a 15-win season never hindering one’s chances, and the champion midfielder produced a season reminiscent of his pre-millennia form.
He’d accrued a bigger tally before – with his 24 in 1998 not enough that year – however this was a legacy defining season that was capped off with a legacy award, alongside two of his contemporaries in Ricciuto and Goodes.
It was a similar tale for Swan, who first emerged as a contender in 2007 – four years before he would be declared the winner.
He polled 20 votes that year to run sixth, before securing consecutive tallies of 12 votes in 2008 and 2009.
2010 was set to be the season it all came together. The Pies were minor premiers and on their way to a first flag in two decades, with Swan’s name being at the top of the leaderboard by the end of the night the industry-wide view heading into the count.
Chris Judd had other ideas though. His runaway 30 votes and Gary Ablett Junior’s 26 relegated Swan to the button rung of the podium, as the Blues’ skipper became a rare winner at two clubs.
But perhaps it’s what made 2011 even sweeter. If strong voting history are the hands in the anatomy of a Brownlow win, then coming up short when victory seems destiny and then winning the next is the index finger. Sometimes you’ve got to lose one to win one.
It infamously occurred in 1993, with Greg Williams pipped by 20-year-old star Gavin Wanganeen by a solitary vote before ‘Diesel’ took it out in 1994, while Adam Cooney’s shock 2008 victory saw him beat widespread favourite Ablett Jnr, who would go on to win the following season.
So in 2011, when Judd was tipped to go back-to-back and enter rare air with a third medal, it was only fitting that this time Swan finished with the ‘Chas’ around his neck.
It’s a scenario Daicos hopes to replicate this year, with the dynamo able to make a case that the past three could already be in his cabinet.
His 2023 chances were scuppered by a Round 21 ankle injury, with the second-year star finishing just three votes adrift from eventual winner Lachie Neale despite essentially playing four less games (three and that Round 21 game where he spent only 60% of the game on the ground, most of which was in the forward line [more on the importance of this later]).
2024 might have been the most likely chance, with the midfielder putting together an unbelievable third year that earnt him 38 votes – what would have been a new record had Patrick Cripps not bettered him with a league-first 45 of his own.
And then there was 2025. While arguably not as strong a year as his previous two, Daicos still entered the night with one of the strongest claims on the medal, only to fall seven votes short of Matt Rowell’s 39.
So the polling history speaks for itself. Daicos, after four seasons at the top level, sits 104th all-time with a remarkable 109 career votes. By the end of Monday, the 23-year-old could sit inside the top 40, with a medal around his neck to go with it.
Midfield minutes
There’s no hiding from the fact that Brownlow fortune favours those in the centre of the game.
Not since Footscray ruck Scott Wynd won in 1992 could it be argued that a non-midfielder has taken home the award, with the night long lamented for its bias towards the ball-winners. For a winner not at all in the centre of the ground, it goes back almost four decades to Tony Lockett’s 1987 triumph.
But that won’t matter to Daicos.
As a teenager in 2022, he scrapped his way to 11 votes in a maiden campaign where he was deployed largely across half back. The next year, after making the permanent move to the midfield, he almost tripled his previous year’s tally with 28 votes.
That proceeded years of 38 and 32, with the Pies star having now accumulated 98 votes after three full-time years playing at the source.
For Buckley and Swan, two of the Club’s greatest ever players in the centre of the ground, it’s a similar story.
Swan averaged a career-high 105 minutes time on ground in 2011 to go with a season average of 31.7 disposals as he cemented his place as the league’s premier mid.
Buckley meanwhile, averaged a career-high 27.5 touches in his Brownlow season of 2003, slightly ahead of other standout campaigns in 1998 (25.2), 1999 (27.1) and 2001 (25.1).
Those who win the ball, catch the eye of the officials, and Daicos does just that.
His home and away campaign spat out an average of 34.9 touches and just over a goal per game, with the frequency of ball in hand going a long way to his ‘Chas’ chances.
Leadership roles
Seeing the umpires at the toss might be a small element, but there’s some truth in its impact on the Brownlow outcome.
Nine of this century’s winners have had the ‘C’ next to their name permanently in the season they won, and for a significant chunk of 2026, Daicos was leading the Pies out.
Darcy Moore’s injury-interrupted campaign meant that alongside heart and soul defender Brayden Maynard, the AFLPA MVP held the captaincy title 19 times this year.
Maynard also missed six games where Moore was already out, meaning Daicos took the reins as sole skipper and he stood up in a big way when required.
He notched 41 and then 37 touches in Rounds 15 and 16 when leading the team out on his own, while in the final four games of the home and away campaign that Maynard missed, Daicos dropped below 35 touches only once.
Buckley’s ’03 win came as skipper, while Swan had risen the ranks to become a member of the leadership group when he saluted in ’11.
Cripps (2022 and 2024), Neale (2020) and Nat Fyfe (2019) are just some of the most recent examples of captains taking out the honour.
While Daicos won’t join that group should he succeed on Monday night, his leadership qualities and status will go a long way in confirming his credentials for the award.
Years in the league
This is where Daicos might join a group of outliers.
Generally, a tenure of eight-plus years is a pre-requisite for Brownlow victory. But after five seasons, Daicos’ genuine-contender status in four of those have fast-tracked his evolution.
Both Buckley and Swan had spent at least a decade in the league by the time they were crowned, while since 2000, only four players have won the award in their fifth season or fewer.
That prestigious group includes Judd (season three in 2004), Brisbane great Simon Black who was in his fifth year when he won in 2002 and surprise winners Shane Woewodin (season four in 2000) and Adam Cooney (fifth season in 2008).
Daicos’ strong claims on the ’24 edition of the count had him looking to equal Judd in winning the award in his third season, while three-time winner Dick Reynolds is the youngest ever winner of the medal as a 19-year-old in 1934 – in what was his second season.
Even the greats of this millennia, with names like Patrick Dangerfield (season eight), Dustin Martin (season eight), Ablett (season eight) and Cripps and Neale (both season nine) took years to get their hands on the award.
It’s an adaptation Daicos has developed with the years he has on those who have gone before him. While he might not be as career-tenured as some others due for their maiden gong, he’s as Brownlow-count-tenured as they come, having constructed a half-decade career already deserving of the most prestigious award in the V/AFL.
