Going into Monday night’s Brownlow Medal count knowing the AFL had minted eight medals in the event of a tie, many thought Power midfielder Robbie Gray was a good bet to take home one of the Charlies.

West Coast Eagles midfielder Matt Priddis took home the prized medal for the AFL’s best and fairest player with 26 votes, ahead of Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe on 25, while Gray gathering 14 votes to finish 13th.

Despite this, his captain Travis Boak still thinks he has a lot of improvement left in him for his career.

“It’s, I think, two years back from his [Gray’s] knee injury and he’s just taken it to another level this year,” said Boak at the Adelaide Airport on Monday before flying to Melbourne for the event.

“I think he’s still got plenty of work to do, and he knows he’s got plenty of work to do, and that’s scary, because we know what he produced this year.

“It’s exciting for our club to have him as part of our group and knowing he’s still got plenty to give.”

While the Brownlow is always a good night, Boak said he would have rather been in Adelaide for the event with Port Adelaide preparing for a grand final.

Instead, he and his teammates will have to watch on like those from 15 other clubs out of the premiership race for 2014.

“It’ll be pretty hard to watch, knowing how we played in the prelim,” said Boak

“But I’ll certainly watch the [grand final], I think you get a lot out of watching big games like that.

“We’ll learn from it and see what level we need to go to again.”

When asked who he thinks will be lifting the premiership cup come Saturday, Boak tipped Sydney to just pip the Hawks.

“It’s going to be a fantastic game,” he said.

“Sydney are just packed with stars and that forward line is pretty potent, but you can’t write off Hawthorn with the quality they’ve got in there as well.”

“It’s going to be a close one.”