1981 VFL Season: Brownlow Medal

Top 10 Players

Rank Player Team(s) Vote(s) 3 2 1
1st Bernie Quinlan Fitzroy 22 6 2 0
Barry Round South Melbourne 22 6 1 2
3rd Rod Ashman Carlton 21 3 4 4
4th Peter Moore Collingwood 16 4 2 0
5th Trevor Barker St Kilda 15 3 2 2
John Mossop Geelong 15 3 3 0
Merv Neagle Essendon 15 3 3 0
8th Tony Buhagiar Essendon 14 3 2 1
9th Geoff Cunningham St Kilda 13 0 5 3
10th Ken Hunter Carlton 12 3 1 1

*: Player was ineligible to receive the medal this season.

Team Summary

Rank Team Vote(s) Leader(s)
1st Carlton 96 Rod Ashman (21)
2nd Fitzroy 83 Bernie Quinlan (22)
3rd Geelong 82 John Mossop (15)
Essendon 82 Merv Neagle (15)
5th South Melbourne 71 Barry Round (22)
6th St Kilda 69 Trevor Barker (15)
7th Collingwood 68 Peter Moore (16)
8th North Melbourne 61 Ross Glendinning (11)
9th Hawthorn 59 Leigh Matthews (11)
10th Richmond 55 Geoff Raines (9)
11th Footscray 42 Doug Hawkins (9)
12th Melbourne 21 Robert Flower, Graham Gaunt, Paul O'Brien, Steven Smith (3)
* undesignated 3

*: Undesignated votes for players who played with more than one team during the home-and-away season (due to incomplete match-level records pre-1984).