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West Coast’s Matt Priddis has won the AFL’s most coveted individual honour, polling 26 votes to take home the Brownlow Medal.
Priddis missed out on All-Australian selection this year, but earned two votes in the final round of the AFL season to wrap up the sport’s greatest individual honour.
‘‘I didn’t think I’d be polling mid-20s,’’ a shocked Priddis said of the honour.
Ineligible Fremantle on-baller Nat Fyfe threatened to follow in the footsteps of Corey McKernan and Chris Grant, the only two suspended players to have topped a Brownlow medal count.Fyfe finished with 25 votes, despite missing four games due to suspension.Priddis is the first Eagle to win the award since Ben Cousins in 2005.
Priddis moved ahead of Gold Coast champion Gary Ablett on the leaderboard after being named best on ground in round 20.Priddis finished the season with a strong showing against the Suns to move one vote clear of Fyfe, saving the Dockers star some serious heartbreak. Priddis was humbled by the gong.
‘‘This is something that doesn’t sit too well with me. I’m a pretty shy sort of guy,’’ he said.
‘‘A little bit daunting, but something I’m obviously very proud of.’’Priddis debuted in 2006 and is another outstanding rookie-list success story.
‘‘I was never going to give up. I just wanted to play at the highest possible level I could play at,’’ the 29-year-old said of his path to the AFL.
Medical entrepreneur Geoffrey Edelsten’s latest girlfriend Gabi Grecko has rescued the Brownlow Medal fashions from being a boring affair.
The red carpet at Crown Casino in Melbourne was awash with crisp white dresses, lace and the usual sequined bling.
But all eyes were on Grecko, who paired a revealing bejewelled black dress with a blonde and brown wig, accessorising the outfit with jewels stuck to her face.
She said feels sexy and tough in the dress she designed herself.
‘‘I just wanted something empowering, you know? Ladies are always supposed to have this and this and this, and I feel like this (her outfit) is not what they’re expected to have,’’ she said.
‘‘I think that women should be able to do whatever they want.’’
Grecko’s shimmering eye make-up and striking black eyeliner was inspired by former model Peggy Moffitt’s look during the 1960s, when she was a muse for fashion designer Rudi Gernreich.
Edelsten’s ex-wife, Brynne Edelsten, was also famous for her revealing red carpet looks.
White was the on-trend shade on Monday evening, with red carpet veterans Rebecca Judd, Nadia Bartel and Erin Maxwell all choosing white gowns.As usual Judd wore a J’Aton Couture gown but this year her dress had a fuller skirt than in previous years.
It was constructed from a mesh, neoprene fabric, which is wetsuit material, and a printed silk.
‘‘The boys (designers Jacob Luppino and Anthony Pittorino) saw a ceiling rose, took a photo of it then had it printed on silk and now I’m wearing it,’’ Judd said.
Bartel’s dress by One Day also featured neoprene, with studs and a leather harness.‘‘I like quite masculine and really clean line looks,’’ she said.
Maxwell wore a Silvana Tedesco white dress with leather detailing and a train.
‘‘For me and my style I’m more of an edgy kind of girl than a pretty, lacy kind of girl,’’ she said.
It is Maxwell’s sixth and last Brownlow as her husband, Collingwood footballer Nick Maxwell, retired this year.
AAP