Who will top the Sydney Swans vote count at the 2018 Brownlow Medal?

Will it be captain Josh Kennedy, who led Sydney’s count in 2012, 2015 and 2017? Maybe Luke Parker who topped the club count in 2016? Or Lance Franklin, the club’s leading vote-getter in 2014?

If you believe the collective weekly opinions of the AFL coaches it will be none of the above.

Instead, it will be a surprise first-time leading vote-getter in Callum Sinclair.

This forecast comes from a conversion of the 5-4-3-2-1 votes awarded by the coaches after each game for the AFL Coaches Association’s Player of the Year Award to a notional set of 3-2-1 votes awarded under the Brownlow system.

Under this formula, Sinclair (10.5 votes) will top the Swans tally from Franklin and Isaac Heeney (9.33), Parker (7.83), Jake Lloyd (7) and Kennedy (6.83).

Also, if the AFLCA votes corelate with the umpire’s votes, Ben Ronke, George Hewett, Callum Mills and Aliir Aliir will poll their first Brownlow votes.

Jarrad McVeigh (2.5) and Heath Grundy (0.33) will also figure in what might be called the ‘Coachlow’ count, and even Will Hayward and Lewis Melican, who each collected 0.33 ‘Coachlow’ votes, could be an outside chance of picking up their first Brownlow votes.

Calculations are made by allocating notional 3-2-1 votes to the three players who poll most prominently in the AFLCA Player of the Year Award.

In the event of a tie, the votes are split so that there are always six nominal votes awarded.

For example, in the Swans’ Round 22 clash with GWS, when the coach’s votes went to Franklin (10), Parker (8), GWS’ Dylan Shiel (6), Dane Rampe (2), GWS’ Callan Ward (2) and Lloyd (2), the notional Brownlow votes would be Franklin (3), Parker (2) and Shiel (1).

In the Round 23 clash with Hawthorn, when the coach’s votes went to Hawthorn’s Ben McEvoy (8) and Liam Shiels (8), Hewett (6), Lloyd (6), and Hawthorn’s Harry Morrison (1) and Tom Mitchell (1), the notional Brownlow votes would be McEvoy and Shiels (2.5 each), Hewett and Lloyd (0.5 each).

If Sinclair does end up topping the Swans vote at Monday’s Brownlow Medal count, he will join an exclusive club of 71 players to have topped the club count since the Brownlow was introduced in 1924, headed by three-time winner Bob Skilton.

Skilton led the club count 10 times in 11 years from 1958 to 1968, missing out only in 1961 when he polled eight votes and was beaten by Frank Johnson (13) and Jim Taylor (12).

Dual Brownlow Medallist Adam Goodes topped the Swans vote tally seven times – in 2003 and six years in a row from 2006 to 2011.

Fifteen players have done so more than once – as listed below – and 56 players have done so once.