{"id":341966,"date":"2025-12-12T00:24:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T00:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341966\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T00:24:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T00:24:14","slug":"harry-grants-golden-boot-win-explained-voting-panel-social-media-reaction-dylan-brown-robbed-cameron-munster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341966\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Grant’s Golden Boot win explained, voting panel, social media reaction; Dylan Brown robbed, Cameron Munster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harry Grant<\/a> has been named this year’s Golden Boot<\/a> winner, but question marks over the prestigious award have been raised once again.<\/p>\n

The champion Storm hooker was a pivotal part of Australia’s 3-0 whitewash in the Ashes series against England and captained the side for the first time.<\/p>\n

Grant has established himself as one of rugby league’s elite players in recent years, but the issue surrounding the Golden Boot aren’t based on his talent.<\/p>\n

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Instead, the issue centres around performances of other players during the international window, which are the only matches that count towards the award.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Harry Grant\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

In the same series Grant’s victory was based off, it was teammate Cameron Munster<\/a> who took out player of the series honours for the Kangaroos.<\/p>\n

In the year-end Pacific Championships, New Zealand five-eighth Dylan Brown<\/a> was awarded man of the match honours in all three games as the Kiwis won the tournament for the second time after a clinical display against Samoa in the final<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brown and Munster, along with Payne Haas and Joseph Tapine, were shortlisted for the top gong, but it was Grant who trumped them all to the surprise of many.<\/p>\n

“I love Harry Grant but ain’t no way he deserved the Golden Boot award,” premiership winner Chad Townsend said via X.<\/p>\n

“Dylan Brown robbed! We need more from the people who judge this award. It’s announced way too late and quite often they just get it all wrong.”<\/p>\n

The judges in question, unlike the NRL’s Dally M Medal voting process<\/a> in recent years, are not hidden or secret and were named as part of the announcement.<\/p>\n

Darren Lockyer, Cameron Smith, Ruben Wiki, James Graham and Petero Civoniceva were all involved in the voting for the men’s award.<\/p>\n

All five men are ‘Golden Cap’ recipients having played 50 games at Test level during their careers – but in the eyes of many, got the Grant decision wrong.<\/p>\n

“He got one man of the match but Munster picked up player of the series,” former NRL player Joel Caine said on SEN Radio on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cameron Munster\u00a0CameraSport via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“So how do we get a player of the series – and that’s the only Test footy we play. Harry didn’t even win best player in that series.”<\/p>\n

Former Manly forward Justin Horo echoed those sentiments and was surprised some of the game’s all-time greats were off the mark.<\/p>\n

“They should be better than that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And I say that with all due respect because they are legends of the game … that’s a great gang and I’m so surprised that that’s the vibe.”<\/p>\n

Jillaroos winger Julia Robinson took out the women’s Golden Boot award, while England player Rob Hawkins won the wheelchair award.<\/p>\n

\"Julia<\/p>\n

Julia Robinson\u00a0Bradley Kanaris via Getty Images<\/p>\n

How is the Golden Boot decided?<\/p>\n

The rugby league Golden Boot is awarded annually to the best performing player during sanctioned international games in that calendar year.<\/p>\n

Who votes on the Golden Boot?<\/p>\n

The voting panel for the men’s Golden Boot consists of five former players – Darren Lockyer, Cameron Smith, Ruben Wiki, James Graham and Petero Civoniceva.<\/p>\n

Golden Boot past winners2015 – Johnathan Thurston (Australia)2016 – Cooper Cronk (Australia)2017 – Cameron Smith (Australia)2018 – Tommy Makinson (England)2019 – Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (New Zealand)2020-21 – No award given due to COVID2022 – Joey Manu (New Zealand)2023 – James Fisher-Harris (New Zealand)2024 – Isaah Yeo (Australia)2025 – Harry Grant (Australia)<\/p>\n

Johnathan Thurston\u00a0Mark Kolbe\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Who has won the most Golden Boot awards?<\/p>\n

Johnathan Thurston holds the record for most Golden Boot wins with three.<\/p>\n

Andrew Johns, Darren Lockyer and Cameron Smith have all won the award twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Grant has been named this year’s Golden Boot winner, but question marks over the prestigious award have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-341966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}