Mitchell Woodcock: Matt Rowell rewarded for leading Gold Coast Suns rise with Brownlow Medal

Gold Coast’s coming of age as a football club was always destined to be coincide with the emergence of Matt Rowell as a superstar of the game. The Suns needed the marquee signing of their only other Brownlow medallist in Gary Ablett Jnr to make a wave on the coast of Queensland, but to really make their mark on the AFL they needed a reliable, workhorse. And it’s those qualities they saw in Rowell which made recruiting him with the No.1 pick in 2019 an easy choice for the Suns. A consistent, inside midfielder out of Victoria, they knew what they were getting and they liked it straight away. Rowell announced himself as a potential Brownlow medallist when he polled three votes in three of his first four games at the level in 2020. But as the Suns finally rose under mastercoach Damien Hardwick to make their first finals campaign in their history, it was unsurprising that Rowell and his long-time partner-in-crime Noah Anderson were leading the way. Rowell isn’t flashy. The most he ever made headlines was when he was caught eating grass. But week-in, week-out the broad-shouldered inside midfielder defied the pressure which came with the mantle as the best in a draft class and the expectation to finally make the struggling club into a respectable force. It was going to take someone to do the simple but big things. Rowell rolled up his sleeves in 2025 and did the grunt work. The 24-year-old averaged a career-high 26 disposals — 14 contested — nine tackles and eight clearances. And even when his name was announced, his face turned red with embarrassment, as if a tradie who just like working on the tools had been told he’s won a Nobel Prize. Yet the tiny medal on the big blue ribbon is a just reward for being the builder of the Gold Coast, a club that is now taken seriously by the AFL world.