“Nothing but a complete disaster”: Cornes takes aim at Freo list calls after B&F results

Kane Cornes has taken aim at Fremantle’s list decisions following the 2024 Doig Medal count.

While the award was claimed by Caleb Serong who was clearly a deserving winner, Cornes was shocked to see that their two million-dollar ruckmen Luke Jackson and Sean Darcy couldn’t get anywhere near the top five.

Although Darcy played just 12 games, restricting his ability to collect votes, Jackson played in 23 and enjoyed some standout games.

Despite that, Jackson could only muster a ninth-placed finish as all of Serong, Andrew Brayshaw, Hayden Young, Josh Treacy, Sam Switkowski, Jordan Clark, Luke Ryan and Alex Pearce polled more votes than him.

Given that this wasn’t a side that managed to qualify for finals, Cornes thinks it’s further proof that the Dockers have made a disastrous list decision to spend so much of their salary cap on the ruck position.

“It’s best and fairest season at the moment, so it's always interesting going through them,” Cornes said on SEN Breakfast.

“There are always little nuggets we can find in best and fairest results, and I just want to focus on Fremantle.

“If you're paying two ruckmen a million bucks each, and that’s a million bucks each for seven years, I would expect better than one of those two finishing ninth in the best and fairest.

“Luke Jackson was nearly beaten by Brandon Walker in the best and fairest, it's been nothing but a complete disaster those two rucks.

“So well done to Caleb Serong, but my dig is to Luke Jackson and Sean Darcy and the bizarre list management decisions at Fremantle, where only one of their million-dollar rucks managed to finish ninth in the best and fairest.

“It is unbelievable.”

The other player to finish in the top 10 of the vote count was defender Brandon Walker.