With no wingman making the 2025 All-Australian team (Hugh McCluggage is not a wingman anymore, people!), it means that the Robert Flower Wingman of the Year Award is the only way a wingman will be celebrated this season.
As this season unfolded, we had a strange situation occurring.
Generally, a wingman leans toward playing an offensive, or a defensive role. They either push hard forward, or push hard back. In a way, they can be a little like the three bears – one pushes too hard forward and it leaves them open in defence. Another pushes too hard in defence, meaning they’re not as big an offensive threat as they could be… and then there is a player who gets it juuuuust right.
And in 2025, that player was Jarrod Berry of the Brisbane Lions.
I have a bit of a confession to make.
Way back in February, before coaches rung changes, and injuries curtailed momentum, I thought it was a good idea to look back at the previous couple of seasons, and concoct the seedings for 2025 when it came to the Robbie Flower Award.
And that worked out well.
I had Josh Daicos as number one, and Craig McRae, like some type of cruel prankster, decided that he was no longer a wingman, moving him to half-back.
Then came the 2024 winner, Errol Gulden, at two. Oh oh… an ankle injury ruined the first half of his year.
At three, Blake Acres had put together three-straight years of solid form on the wing for the Blues and Dockers. And he completely made a brown deposit in the bed.
And on it went – Ed Langdon became a half-forward and tagger, Mason Wood had to play forward as the Saints’ talls fell over, and Finn Callaghan moved into a full-time midfield role.
The winner was seeded eighth.
Shame on me. I should have had better foresight.
So, what was the reason that Berry was so good across the board?
Well, in order to tell you that, we have to look at the way he played the game. And to do that accurately, we have to look at how the second and third placed players played the game.
Massimo D’Ambrosio placed third. After a slower start, Mass found his groove in the role that made him such a weapon in 2024 – as the wingman who drifted back to help the defence. However, whilst he concentrated on the defensive side of the game, it robbed him of the chance to be a potent force going forward. He was ranked 11th on the Hawks this season for inside 50s. 165th in the the league.
The second-place finisher, Ollie Dempsey was an offensive weapon, often pushing hard forward to finish off plays. He kicked an outstanding 28 goals in the home and away season, averaging 1.2 per game, and continuing to grow into the role at the Cattery. However, his concentration on offence meant that he was not offering the same impact on defence, finishing 22nd at Geelong in Rebound 50s. That’s 421st in the league – eek!
You see how that works?
With these two, it was one or the other.
With Berry… things were different.
Berry ranked fifth on the Lions for Rebound 50s, as he pushed hard into defence and eased the burden on his backline. And then, he’d run just as hard forward, finishing eighth in Inside 50s, as well.
Up and back, all day long, with a particular focus on preventing his direct opponent from getting the ball.
No bells, no whistles, no bullshit – just tough, hard-nosed play, combined with the ability to win his own ball when things got a little willing.
Berry finished just on 20 disposals per game, which was +3.3 on Dempsey, and +1.4 on D’Ambrosio. Whilst Massimo was good at helping out in defence (5.6 pressure acts per game), Berry had more of an impact in that aspect (7.4 defensive pressure acts), whilst Dempsey’s 4.7 reflect his penchant for playing a more offensive role.
So, now you see the value of Berry?
Now you see how the goals of Dempsey and the way he impacted his team may have looked great (because it was), and the help Massimo offered the Hawks as he pushed hard into defence greatly aided their defence (because it did), but neither man played the whole game better than Jarrod Berry.
Now you see what the AFL experts failed to see when they discussed wingmen?
That’s what I’m here for.
Every week, I would compile the numbers for the Robbie Flower Award, but when I posted them, or when people discussed the impact of the wingmen on their teams, his name was rarely raised. I’d sit there and shake my head. These were “experts” commenting on the role that Berry was excelling in, and they opted to ignore the hard work – the tough stuff – in order to focus on the highlights.
Bells and whistles.
Sizzle over steak.
Of all the years we’ve been awarding the Robbie Flower Wingman of the Year, this season seems to be the most gratifying. In the past, we’ve had standouts – the last two years have been dominated by Daicos and Gulden, but this season, it feels as though we’ve done the work nobody else was willing to do. We looked deeper beyond the surface level of “so-and-so played well” to uncover which players were actually doing the damage and not getting the plaudits for it.
And sitting atop the heap, by no small margin in the end, was Jarrod Berry.
He joins Daicos, Gulden, Paul Seedsman, Karl Amon, and Sam Menegola, as the winners of the only ward designed to reward the wingmen in the game.
Congratulations, Jarrod Berry – the 2025 Robert Flower Wingman of the Year.
Full update and final standings below for our members
In 2025, we are again 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 the last couple of years have seen some long overdue 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 sixth 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)
2024 – Errol Gulden (Sydney)
2025 – Jarrod Berry (Brisbane)
Amazing that Paul Seedsman just had the best season of his career in 2021 and was forced to retire. Hope you’re now doing better, Seed.
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