To win a Copeland Trophy is a magnificent achievement but to win the award in a premiership year is extremely rare. Speculation and excitement will be rife inside the Crown Palladium on Wednesday night when over 1,500 supporters are expected to witness the count.
Most of the talk will circle around reigning two-time winner Dane Swan and whether he can be the first Magpie since Nathan Buckley to win three consecutive Copeland Trophies.
Buckley, who ended his career with six Copelands (the most in the club’s history), Phonse Kyne (1946-48) and Bob Rose (1951-53) have all won three in a row while Albert Collier, Des Tuddenham and Murray Weideman have won three (not successive) and the great Len Thompson claimed five.
The Copeland Trophy voting system allocates one vote to each player for every match played and up to 20 additional votes per game to be dispersed among the best players as judged by the Collingwood Match Committee.
Outside of Swan and the club has featured a host of starring Pies in its premiership year.
The Magpies supplied four All Australians, the highest since 1990 (six), including Swan, Harry O’Brien, Alan Didak and Scott Pendlebury.
Pendlebury’s year was remarkable as he played in every game, was the Norm Smith Medallist in the grand final replay as well as the ANZAC Medallist, and won his first All Australian guernsey.
The umpires deemed Swan (24) the best Pie with Pendlebury not far behind (21). The Brownlow results are not the best judge of club voting as Pendlebury polled one more than Swan in 2009 but finished 16 votes behind Swan on the night.
Players to feature in all 26 games include Swan, Pendlebury, Alan Toovey, Dale Thomas, Harry O’Brien and Darren Jolly.
Rising stars Steele Sidebottom and Dayne Beams played 25.
Last year’s runner-up Nick Maxwell produced similar numbers to his 2009 season and with his strong defensive work will be one to watch.
Didak (2006) and Travis Cloke (2007) are the only two current Magpies besides Swan who have taken home the prestigious honour. Didak played in 24 matches and enjoyed one of his finest seasons while Cloke also featured in 24 contests and produced similar numbers to his wonderful 2007 season.
Collingwoodfc.com.au will be providing a CopelandCast on the night, streaming the entire night online with supporters able to interact with the show via a live chat. Click here to register for the free video stream.
Click here to view the list of past winners of the coveted Trophy
The Copeland Trophy voting system
1. Each player is allocated one vote for each game in which he is selected to represent the Collingwood Football Club.
2. Up to 20 votes per game can be allocated to the best players as judged by the Collingwood Match Committee. Votes are awarded based on the average vote of all members of the Match Committee.
3. In the event that two or more players finish with the same number of votes then the player who has played in the least amount of games takes the higher position. If these players have played the same number of games then the player who has polled the greater number of “high value” votes will take the higher position.
