There are plenty of talking points after the AFL's qualifying and elimination finals, with one of the biggest being whether the goal and mark of the year awards should extend through the finals series.
Let's get to this week's overreactions column, where we judge the biggest takeaways as legitimate or irrational.
The GOTY and MOTY awards should include finals
Both Errol Gulden and Izak Rankine booted spectacular goals in their side's respective finals wins this past weekend. Both players demonstrated ridiculous individual skill and neither major would look out of place if it were declared the 2026 Goal of the Year winner. But, of course, under current AFL award criteria, finals games are excluded from both the goal and mark of the year awards. So that won't be happening.
Verdict: Not an overreaction
Let's start with the most pressing question. Why must the goal or mark of the year only come from a home and away season game? Why can't it come in a final? Is it to protect fairness, given with finals not every team plays the same number of games. Is it because the league wants to present the winners on Brownlow Medal night, which is staged during the finals series. Who knows?
What we do know is that the whole point of these awards is to crown the BEST mark and goal of the YEAR. Excluding any games from eligibility immediately contradicts what these awards are supposedly in place for.
If anything, shouldn't a brilliant goal or mark in finals football should count for more than the exact same during the home and away season? The stakes are higher in finals. The pressure is ratcheted up in finals. And there are more eyes on these games. This is one of the many factors why I believe Gulden's incredible goal late in the third quarter against the Lions on Saturday afternoon was the best goal of the entire year. For him to be in eligible because it came in a final is ridiculous.
Gulden wouldn't be the first Swan to be stiffed by this rule. Two years ago, also in a qualifying final at the SCG, Isaac Heeney took an absolute screamer over GWS defender Jack Buckley. It was comfortably the best mark of the year and yet it was ineligible to win the award. Go figure.
The AFL needs to sort this out immediately.
-- Jake Michaels
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