History of the coveted rookies award reveals that generally each season’s winner comes from an early nomination.
Swallow, 18, started his first AFL season a raging $2.15 favourite to win the NAB Rising Star award.
Geelong’s rapidly rising young forward Mitch Duncan is the latest nominee with his Round 3 selection after an impressive 24-possession performance as the Cats thrashed Port Adelaide at Skilled Stadium by a whopping 79 points.
Exciting Essendon first-year forward Dyson Heppell and a somewhat longer serving West Coast Eagles on-baller Luke Shuey are the first two nominees for 2011.
Of the last five NAB Rising Star winners, the latest nominee into any season was Geelong midfield sensation Joel Selwood who was nominated in Round 5 of 2007 after he was taken by the Cats at number seven overall in the 2006 draft.
Of the last nine winners, the deepest nomination into a given season was Richmond’s Brett Deledio who won the award in 2005 after he was the Round 8 nominee.
Only twice since Collingwood superstar Nathan Buckley was the inaugural Rising Star back in 1993 in his only season at Brisbane, has the highly regarded award for the AFL finest young talent been won from beyond a season’s half-way stage.
In 1996 brilliant young West Coast rover Ben Cousins was nominated from Round 12 and in 2001 St Kilda big man Justin Koschitzke won from his Round 14 nomination.
All other victories in the 18-year history have come from no later than Deledio in Round 8.
Rising Star nominations are handed out from the AFL football department at the conclusion of every round of fixtures to players who are under 21 at January 1 of that year and have played no more than 10 games before the season starting.
The overall winner is decided from all nominees on a 5-4-3-2-1 voting process by the officially AFL-appointed All-Australian selectors.
A NAB Rising Star candidate must have won a weekly nomination to be eligible for the voting process.
Weekly nominations invariably come from a young player in a winning team.
With Gold Coast’s hopes of winning many matches in their first season, it further complicates Swallow’s prospects to win an award he was considered a virtual certainty at the start of his debut season.
Unlike numerous other young rising stars, the brilliance of the classy Suns midfielder is making Swallow a high priority target for opposition to curb, almost as much as his superstar captain and play-maker Gary Ablett.
Ablett has boldly predicted that a Suns win is not far off providing the new unit can string four quarters together.
A win and even a remotely tidy performance from young gun Swallow will also appreciably help his causes to win an accolade that most astute judges considered pretty much his own before Gold Coast’s first season even opened.