{"id":853103,"date":"2026-08-12T23:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/853103\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T23:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:12:18","slug":"afl-news-2026-matthew-lloyd-brownlow-medal-prediction-nick-daicos-to-win-by-double-digits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/853103\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL News 2026: Matthew Lloyd Brownlow Medal prediction Nick Daicos to win by double digits"},"content":{"rendered":"

After three straight seasons of podium finishes, Essendon<\/a> champion Matthew Lloyd<\/a> cannot see anybody stopping Nick Daicos<\/a> from finally claiming the Brownlow Medal<\/a> this September.<\/p>\n

The Collingwood<\/a> champion has had a dominant and consistent season, averaging a career-high 35 disposals per game and kicking 22 goals to this point.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nick Daicos of the Magpies.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

He has been the favourite to win the medal across the last two seasons, but lost out to Carlton\u2019s<\/a> Patrick Cripps<\/a> in 2024 and Gold Coast\u2019s<\/a> Matt Rowell<\/a> in 2025, who both unexpectedly polled more votes than any other players in history to do so.<\/p>\n

In 2023, he was also the favourite going into the final month of the season, before an injury ended his campaign. He still finished third, just three votes behind the winner.<\/p>\n

After three years of narrow misses, Lloyd believes this year\u2019s count could be largely uneventful.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came third in 2023, second in 2024 and 2025 and he got a record number of votes two years ago, but he still lost to Patrick Cripps who polled more than him,\u201d Lloyd told Nine\u2019s Today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019ll be over with four or five rounds to go this year and he\u2019s just going to win it by the length of the Flemington straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s had a dominant season, he\u2019s clearly the best player in the game right now and he will well and truly be a worthy winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe should win it by close to 10 votes I reckon this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time a player won the Brownlow Medal by double digits was 2020, with Brisbane<\/a> star Lachie Neale<\/a> 10 votes clear of Port Adelaide\u2019s<\/a> Travis Boak in second.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Richmond<\/a> champion Dustin Martin<\/a> technically won from Hawthorn\u2019s Tom Mitchell by 11 votes, but Geelong<\/a> star Patrick Dangerfield<\/a> was ineligible and finished three behind Martin.<\/p>\n

Those are the only instances of a Brownlow being decided by double digits this century.<\/p>\n

Even with the narrow medal misses, Daicos is putting together one of the best starts to a career of any player in history. At just 23, he will add a fourth All-Australian blazer, he\u2019s 24 votes clear in the AFL Coaches Association Player of the Year award, will likely with the AFLPA MVP and could add that elusive Brownlow.<\/p>\n

He is contracted to the Magpies until the end of 2029, but will be in line for an extraordinary pay day before that time comes.<\/p>\n

And while Lloyd expects the Devils in particular to have a crack at signing Daicos, he can\u2019t picture him ever leaving Collingwood.<\/p>\n

\u201cTasmania<\/a> are potentially after him, every club would love him, but I can\u2019t see him wearing any other colours than black and white,\u201d Lloyd said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After three straight seasons of podium finishes, Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd cannot see anybody stopping Nick Daicos from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-853103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853103","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=853103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}