How to destroy a key event on the calendar

Adam Cooney's win in this year's Brownlow, by one vote from Simon Black and two from Gary Ablett Junior, was as pleasant as it was unexpected. Because of the number of Footscray aka Western Bulldogs supporters at my mother's school and the fact that that club's most famous and longest-serving player (Scott West) was a student and my former school (Penleigh and Essendon Grammar).

However, what I will remember of the televising of the Brownlow Count for this year is the ridiculous number of interludes interviewing admittedly famous AFL players (and much lesser-known people who have been extremely generous in their support of the game) between the reading out of the voting. It was so annoying to watch them do these out-of-place documentaries that I went up to the computer several times during the count because I could not stand waiting for the return of counting. when there was some sustained counting as excitement intensified as to who would win the Medal, I was very tired and did not wish to wait for the news at all.

The excessive number of documentaries in between voting, however, is not the only thing that alarms me about Channel Ten's broacast of the 2008 Brownlow Medal count.

The incredible error of counting Round 2 before Round 1 is quite incredible by the normally immaculate standards of Brownlow broadcasts as I have known them for over a decade. I tried to laugh, but it was very hard because the mistake was so hard to forgive.