Where to start after one of the more enthralling Brownlow Medal counts in recent memory?

Chris Judd won in the end with 30 votes, after missing the first three matches and then polling votes in 12 of the 19 remaining matches in which he did play.

Yet he would be the luckiest Brownlow winner in recent times after somehow, and miraculously, avoiding a date with the tribunal after elbowing Matthew Pavlich in the face during Carlton's round-13 clash with Fremantle.

Nice work from Channel Ten to flash to Pavlich during Judd's speech to show what is still a very prominent scar on the Docker skipper's cheek, and we couldn't help think of North ruckman Corey McKernan, who was robbed of the 1996 Brownlow after a suspension for tripping, which when compared to Judd's elbow, was a joke.

Until tonight there was a fair argument to suggest that there was no greater gap between the best and second best player at any club than at St Kilda. When Nick Riewoldt fires, the Saints almost always win. When he doesn't, they struggle and that surely will be the case in Saturday's Grand Final as it was last year.

But the gap between Judd and any of his teammates now borders on the embarrassing. Judd polled 30 votes, while Kade Simpson with nine, was the next best performer from Carlton. And that's from a team that made the finals. Heaven help the Blues if Judd ever does a knee.

We did enjoy the interview with Judd after the win. Gone was the ever-present sneer and the straight-bat answers and in its place was the thoughtful, engaging and obviously very bright young man we keep hearing about, but don't get to see all that often.

Of course, the highlight of the night was the stony face of Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, when it became clear that the red-hot pre-count favourite Dane Swan was not going to get the chocolates. A grand final appearance is clearly not good enough for the King of Collingwood.

At $1.50, Swan was the shortest-priced favourite heading into a count since Shane Crawford in 1999 and if Eddie's looks could kill, then a collective bomb would drop on wherever it is that the umpires get together en masse.

Gary Ablett and Andrew McLeod have been unwittingly caught on camera in recent years at the Brownlow Medal, making their displeasure known at the outcome of the count, but McGuire's petulance takes the cake and it wouldn't be surprising if he demanded some sort of investigation into the result, in the same fashion furious Richmond officials did in 1973 when Kevin Bartlett was beaten by North Melbourne's Keith Greig.

Certainly, he will vent at some stage and if the few neutrals out there who had yet to decide which team to support on Saturday in the Grand Final were looking for a reason to choose, they now have one.

Swan got 24 votes, but as a few brave souls who went against the flow predicted, he lost votes to teammate Scott Pendlebury, who polled 21 votes. Still, for all his dominance this season (he polled votes in 11 games), the umpires only twice adjudged Swan to be the best player on the ground.

You suspect that despite the clear anger of the president, that the coach wouldn't be all that displeased with the turn of events. No doubt there will be a quiet word exchanged between Swan and Mick Malthouse sometime between now and 2.30pm on Saturday and that a phrase made famous by the late, great EJ Whitten will be uttered.

A couple of other observations. With 26 votes, runner-up Gary Ablett has now polled 98 votes in four years. For that he has just one Brownlow and that, not Swan's failure to win, is the real travesty.

And finally, plaudits to BPL's (and yes, Channel Ten's) own Tim Lane for a great interview with Jim Stynes. Footy can be extraordinarily parochial, but Stynes has become an inspiring figure for everyone in the game and the respect and dare we say it, love, for Stynes and sadness about the battle he is enduring, came through in a wonderful piece of television.

As Judd nobly pointed out during the medal presentation, those looking for role models in football need look no further than the 1991 winner and Melbourne president.