IT'S THAT time of the year again.

The game's highest individual honour will be up for grabs in the Crown Palladium tonight, with one of the tightest vote counts in history forecast during football's night of nights.

Unsurprisingly, Blues fans will be hoping for a repeat of the 2022 count, which saw Patrick Cripps seal the triumph on the final day of the season. Could lightning strike twice?

In preparation for the count, take a look at these historical Carlton facts.

- What round will Patrick Cripps enter the Carlton history books? At the end of the 2023 count after polling 20 votes, Cripps now trails Craig Bradley by just three in the Club’s all-time Brownlow Medal vote count. It shouldn’t take him long to get there, before he then becomes the first Blue to reach 150 career votes at the Club. Chris Judd and Greg Williams - both dual Brownlow Medallists - have passed 150 in their own right, but polled a portion of their votes at different clubs.

- It also looks like Cripps will need to achieve a Navy Blue first to take home the game’s highest individual honour for the second time. Never before has a Blue polled more than 30 votes in the Brownlow Medal count: Williams did so in 1994 when he triumphed, Judd followed on 16 years later with his memorable win, and Sam Walsh’s extraordinary year in 2021 matched their tally yet he ultimately finished fourth. Cripps won the award in 29 votes in 2022, but in such a hotly contested field, he may need to go a few better.

- On that note, where will Walsh end up? At 24 years of age, Walsh tied with 1947 Brownlow Medallist Bert Deacon on 63 votes to enter the Club’s top 20. He now finds himself in a logjam which should see him propel up the Blues’ Brownlow charts. The likes of Stephen Silvagni, Williams, Stephen Kernahan, Kade Simpson, Keith Shea, Jack Howell and Geoff Southby are all within touching distance for Walsh, while Bryce Gibbs isn’t out of reach on 80.

- That’s at one end of the scale, but let’s go to the other end. One of our favourite moments on football’s night of nights is players polling career votes for the first ever time. There’s more than a few Blues who are in line for that nod tonight, with Tom De Koning leading the way in that regard: there’s little doubt that the ruckman will poll at some stage throughout the middle of the year — it’s just a matter of when. Close mate Brodie Kemp could join him for his four-goal performance as a forward in Round 23, while there were a few performances throughout the year where Elijah Hollands will be looking for his first nod from the umpires.

- It’s looking like a tough task, but there is a chance that Hollands could join a rare club. He couldn’t have been much more impressive on his Navy Blue debut, picking up a coaches’ vote and his first Carlton goal in the Round 3 win over North Melbourne. While he will have other teammates ahead of him, Hollands is an outside chance to feature among the votes in that game, which would make him the first Blue since Adam Cerra in Round 1, 2022 to be among the vote getters in his first Carlton game.

- Speaking of that Round 3 game against North Melbourne, we’re looking forward to seeing how Harry McKay tracks to start the season. The key forward had a great season in 2024, typified by an outstanding start to the campaign. McKay received 10 coaches’ votes in Opening Round for a performance which also yielded the match-winning goal, featured prominently again in Round 1 against Richmond and then backed it up with a best-on-ground showing once more against North in Round 3. While Blues fans might not love seeing Cripps potentially lose out on votes early, it’s hard to begrudge the big No.10 getting some love in the vote count of an award which has so often been touted as one which belongs to the game’s midfielders.