The Club Champion voting system rewards consistency, excellence, durability and team contributions, and is appropriately decided upon by those people who know the players' assigned roles best - the coaches.
The Lions Match Committee convened every Monday morning and gave each player's performance a rating out of five - including half votes.
The maximum five votes has been given out just six times since the current voting format was introduced and is generally reserved for faultless individual performances.
Among the five-vote performances in Lions history have been Jason Akermanis’ superb effort against Geelong on a wet Gabba in 2005 which included ‘those goals’ from the boundary, and Jonathan Brown’s record-breaking 10-goal haul against Carlton at the Gabba in 2007.
This is further proof that only a truly remarkable individual performance will be rewarded with the maximum five votes.
On the other hand, players who made little or no impact on a game can receive zero votes.
This means that votes aren’t simply awarded for players who take to the field - they need to have made a noticeable contribution to the match to earn votes.
In fact, only six of the 22 players who took to the field in the team’s capitulation against Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium in 2010 received votes.
The Match Committee do not rely on stats sheets, goal lists or popular opinion to make an assessment. Rather, they evaluate a players’ performance based on the roles they have been assigned.
For instance, a run-with player may not impact heavily on the stats sheet, yet will still be viewed favourably in the eyes of the Lions coaches for effectively nullifying his opponent’s influence on the contest.
The voting system also rewards players who feature in all or most senior matches throughout the season as it provides them with greater capacity to score votes.
Simon Black, Jack Redden, Matthew Leuenberger, Pearce Hanley and James Polkinghorne were the only five players to play in all 22 Lions matches this season, while Cheynee Stiller and Ash McGrath missed just one.
So what does this mean leading into the Lions’ 2011 Club Champion vote count?
Quite simply, it means that the ultimate winner will be the player that the Lions Match Committee believes gave the greatest on-field contribution to the Club in 2011.
