In 2024, we are honoured and privileged at The Mongrel Punt to be granted permission from the Flower family to name our Wingman of the Year Award after one of the greatest players the Melbourne Football Club has ever produced.
The Robbie Flower Wingman of the Year Award covers one of the more neglected positions in the league over the last decade. Whilst 2023 saw some recognition for the outside runners, with both Josh Daicos and Errol Gulden named to the All-Australian team, it has largely been a role that has been overlooked by all except those with a keen eye for what wingmen mean to a team – the defensive running, the link-up play, the creativity, and the potent metres-gained aspect of their play.
Now in its fifth season, The Robert Flower Wingman of the Year Award is the only award of its kind, ranking the wingmen of the league on a weekly basis, combining statistical data with a voting structure to assess those playing the role.
Previous winners are as follows.
2020 – Sam Menegola (Geelong)
2021 – Paul Seedsman (Adelaide)
2022 – Karl Amon (Port Adelaide)
2023 – Josh Daicos (Collingwood)
Amazing that Paul Seedsman just had the best season of his career in 2021 and was forced to retire. Hope you’re now doing well, Seed.
This time last season, I was busying myself writing about the season of Josh Daicos on the wing for the Magpies. After finishing second in the Robbie Flower Wingman of the Year Award in 2022, Daicos blitzed the field to win easily.
Sitting in second place in 2023 was Errol Gulden. With eight games remaining, Gulden was poised to strike, but a shift to more midfield minutes (he averaged close to 50% of centre bounces over those final eight games) gave Daicos a clear run home.
Things were different in 2024.
Playing more of a consistent outside role, Errol barnstormed his way into the lead from the early going, and from there, put together a run of games from Round 13 through to Round 15 that have been unmatched since we began charting the exploits of the league’s best outside runners in 2020.
To fully emphasise how good Gulden was during that stretch of games, we must delve into our own footy history.
The formula we use at The Mongrel to award weekly scores in ‘The Robbie’ involves statistical layers mixed with media and coaches’ votes. These go into The Mongrel’s special mixing tool (usually a sheet of paper I write things down on) and after I calculate things… using a calculator, a final score for the round is awarded to each player who runs the wings.
Penalties are applied for those, like Gulden on occasion, who attend centre bonces and pick up midfield minutes, but for the most part, we get a tidy little look at the players who’ve excelled in the role.
Since the 2020 season, there have been 13 occasions where a player has scored 100+ points in a round. It is a mark that indicates domination across the board, with a player so potent in a number of areas that he can be the best at just about everything that makes a wingman an important part of the structure, as well as catch the eye of the coaches
Gulden did it three times in three rounds in 2024.
Those performers put such distance between him and Daicos (and then Massimo D’Ambrosio) that the result of this award was determined long before the season ended.
In 2023, Daicos dominated the position, scoring 946.7 points, to beat Gulden by the lazy 250-odd points. It was comprehensive. and to his credit, Daicos (possibly by way of the extra round, as he smashed it in the final week) actually topped his 2023 score, by scoring 959.0 points this year. But what Gulden did in 2024 dwarfed that output.
Gulden eclipsed Daicos’ 2023 score by the end of Round 17, and went on to score a mammoth 1257.7 points for the season. It may have been more, but he played too many midfield minutes in Rounds 23/24 to qualify for any score, at all, attending close to two-thirds of centre bounces in the last fortnight of the season.
A late charge over the final five rounds, and a monster game in the final round, saw Daicos claim second place, from Massimo D’Ambrosio in third, but at over 250 points behind (Daicos) and 450-odd (Massimo) they were like the bloke from the Monopoly game winning second prize in a beauty contest.
This year, it was all about first place, and that means it was all about Errol Gulden.
With a great mix of power running, skill, and vision, Gulden has set himself apart from the crop of wingmen in 2024. If you were a forward leading to him, you’d lick your lips. If you were a defender attempting to cover that forward, you’d be nervous as hell as Gulden lowered his eyes.
At just 22 years of age, Gulden has the world at his feet. Assuming he plays on the wing for years to come, he may be carving a path toward becoming one of the best to ever do it at the position. Of course, a lot can change, but I ask you – when was the last time a genuine wingman won back-to-back All-Australian blazers?
That’s what we’re looking at as the AA team is announced this week.
Maybe Josh Daicos lifts his rate in 2025? Maybe a young fella like Finn Callaghan, or Caleb Windsor stakes a claim on being the best young runner in the game, and challenges the Gulden/Daicos duopoly. Or maybe Massimo D’Ambrosio continues his climb to become a force over the next couple of years.
Any way you slice it, the 2024 ‘Robbie’ belongs to Errol Gulden. He was far away the most dominant wingman of the season, and the results don’t life – he is the most dominant wingman we’ve seen in at least the last five years.
Here are the final standings.
1 – ERROL GULDEN (SYDNEY)
2 – JOSH DAICOS (COLLINGWOOD)
3 – MASSIMO D’AMBROSIO (HAWTHORN)
4 – BLAKE ACRES (CARLTON)
5 – BRADLEY HILL (ST KILDA)
6 – ED LANGDON (MELBOURNE)
7 – LACHIE SHOLL (ADELAIDE)
8 – BAILEY SCOTT (NORTH MELBOURNE)
9 – FINN CALLAGHAN (GWS)
10 – OLLIE DEMPSEY (GEELONG)
Interestingly (or maybe it is just interesting to me), the only player that has finished in the top ten for every year we’ve run ‘The Robbie’ is Ed Langdon.
Langdon has been a picture of consistency for the Dees, with his finishes as follows.
2020 – 9th
2021 – 8th
2022 – 4th
2023 – 9th
2024 – 6th
A phenomenal result, without taking home the prize.
The second place finish for Josh Daicos makes it his third top-two finish in a row, with two second-places bookending his 2023 win.
Meanwhile, Gulden makes it two top-two finishes on the trot, in 2023/24.
ALL-TIME HIGHEST SCORES
123.7 – Mitch Robinson (R11, 2021)
109.4 – Errol Gulden (R13, 2024)
106.9 – Brad Hill (R5, 2024)
106.9 – Dan Houston (R1, 2022)
105.8 – Josh Kelly (R6, 2024)
105 – Isaac Smith (R4, 2022)
104.0 – Karl Amon (R20, 2021)
103.7 – Errol Gulden (R15, 2024)
102.3 – Errol Gulden (R14, 2024)
101.9 – Kyle Langford (R12, 2021)
101.9 – Jordan Dawson (R23, 2021)
101.2 – Josh Daicos (R24, 2024)
101.0 – Zach Merrett (R11, 2020)
Before I go, thanks once again to the Flower family for allowing us to name our Wingman of the Year after the great Robbie. My father has long since passed, but we used to attend games, and one thing I remember about whenever we watched Melbourne games was how much he admired Robbie.
“Bloody Robbie Flower”, he’d say, as Robbie did something amazing. “Someone stop bloody Robbie Flower.”
And then he’d turn to me, all of seven or eight at the time, and add “Hell of a player, that bloke,” just so I knew he didn’t hate the man. He just hated what Robbie was doing to his team.
What an honour to be permitted to name our award after him.
Got a question about where someone finished? Happy to answer. Drop a comment below, or ask on our socials, and I’ll dive into my spreadsheet and see what I can find.
As always, massive thanks to those who support this work. It is a labour of love for me, and having you guys as members of the site basically keeps me going. So sincerely… thank you – HB
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