• Dockers rocked: Brownlow favourite Fyfe to miss last to games
ONLY one man has missed more games in a season than Nat Fyfe and still won the Brownlow Medal.
Fyfe was on Tuesday cotton-woolled for the rest of the home-and-away season after Fremantle medicos diagnosed inflammation in his left fibula.
The setback means the raging Brownlow favourite, who had 29 votes after 13 rounds according to AFL.com.au's Brownlow predictor, will have missed four games in total by season's end.
• If not Fyfe, then who? Check out AFL.com.au's Brownlow predictor
The only player to have missed more games and still carried off the Medal is Richmond's Stan Judkins.
Judkins missed a remarkable six games in the 1930 season. He tied with Footscray's Allan Hopkins and Collingwood's Harry Collier on four votes apiece under a system in which the umpire only awarded one vote per game to the fairest and best player.
He was only awarded the Brownlow after the VFL officials met the week after the count and ruled Judkins the winner as he had played fewer games (12) than Hopkins (15) and Collier (18).
Remarkably, the Tigers dropped the classy wingman four weeks out from the finals. He remains the only medallist to be omitted during his winning year.
Several players have missed three games and still claimed the Brownlow, including triple medallist Haydn Bunton in 1932, Gary Ablett in 2009 and Chris Judd in 2010.
Ablett was last year's hot early favourite, but missed seven games. He finished equal third in the final count, behind winner Matt Priddis and the ineligible Fyfe.
The Gold Coast/Geelong great joined a raft of near-misses by champion players who fell foul of the injury gods.
Collingwood's enigmatic key forward Phil Carman was sidelined for eight games in 1975 and only came up three votes shy of the eventual winner, Footscray ruckman Gary Dempsey.
Carman, who won the Magpies' best and fairest award in the same year, broke a bone in his foot when playing state football for Victoria. He was missed rounds 11-18 and promptly kicked 17 goals (six and 11) in his first two games back. It was his first season in the VFL.
Essendon's James Hird is a more recent example of a player to have fallen just short, failing by three votes to share in the 2003 Brownlow Medal despite missing six games through calf and hamstring injuries.
Hird polled 19 votes from his 16 games, three behind the winning trio of Mark Ricciuto, Adam Goodes and Nathan Buckley.
In 2010, Judd missed the first three rounds of the season through suspension and started the count as a $21 outsider behind clear favourite Dane Swan.
However, the Carlton champion was adjudged best afield in each of his first five games that season, reeling in early leader Aaron Sandilands by round eight and he was never headed.
BROWNLOW MEDALLISTS WHO MISSED MULTIPLE GAMES
6 – Stan Judkins (Richmond), 1930 (won on countback)
3 – Allan Hopkins (Footscray), 1930 (awarded retrospectively)
3 – Haydn Bunton (Fitzroy), 1932
3 – Tony Liberatore (Footscray), 1990
3 – Gary Ablett (Geelong), 2009
3 – Chris Judd (Carlton), 2010
2 – Jimmy Bartel (Geelong), 2007
2 – Edward 'Carji' Greeves (Geelong), 1924
2 – Colin Watson (St Kilda), 1925
2 – Dick Reynolds (Essendon), 1934
2 – Dick Reynolds (Essendon), 1937
2 – Ian Stewart (St Kilda), 1965
2 – Bob Skilton (South Melbourne), 1968
2 – Gerard Healy (Sydney), 1988
2 – Gavin Wanganeen (Essendon), 1993
2 – Greg Williams (Carlton), 1994
NOTABLE PLAYERS WHO JUST MISSED OUT
1975 – Phil Carman (Collingwood): missed eight games, polled 17 votes; finished three votes behind winner Gary Dempsey (Footscray)
1976 – Peter Knights (Hawthorn): missed seven games, polled 45 votes (in a year 3-2-1 were awarded by two umpires); finished three votes behind winner Graham Moss (Essendon)
1996 – Paul Salmon (Hawthorn): missed five games, polled 18 votes; finished three votes behind winners James Hird and Michael Voss
2003 – James Hird (Essendon): missed six games, polled 19 votes; finished three votes behind winners Mark Ricciuto, Nathan Buckley and Adam Goodes
• A short history of the Brownlow Medal
