TRIPLE Brownlow medallist Bobby Skilton has tipped Nick Riewoldt to be an upset winner of the medal tonight, despite odds that point compellingly towards a contest between Geelong and the rest.

Sportingbet yesterday launched a market pitting any Geelong winner against a winner from the rest of the 15 clubs, and set the odds at $1.25 for a Cat to get up and $3.75 for any other player in the competition.

Gary Ablett remained $2.20 favourite, despite missing four weeks due to injury, ahead of North Melbourne's Brent Harvey ($4.25) and last year's winner Jimmy Bartel ($4.50). Fellow members of Geelong's awesome on-ball brigade, Joel Corey ($17) and Joel Selwood ($23), are also in the top 10 favourites.

"So it's effectively four blokes versus 15 sides with lists of 45. It's amazing," Stephen Fletcher of Sportingbet said last night.

But Skilton doubted Ablett could win after missing round seven and rounds 16 to 18, and said the Geelong quartet that is favoured to draw the most votes for the club "could cut each others' throats" by sharing best-on-ground honours week to week.

"That might be the thing that goes against them," said Skilton, who favoured Riewoldt, the St Kilda captain, and Harvey. "I think the fact that Ablett's basically missed the five games could be a big worry. He missed four, but he was off the ground in the one he got injured so that's nearly five.

"The odds are probably against him (Riewoldt), but I think he'll pick up his share of three votes. He is one of the outsiders but I think he's played some outstanding games. But I've been very wrong in recent years."

Riewoldt would break an apparently well-entrenched trend of midfielders taking the Brownlow — and midfielders who have played in the grand final in the same year have a strong medal record. There have been exceptions. Chris Judd, the 2004 medal winner when at West Coast, did not play in the grand final. Neither, in 2003, did Adam Goodes and Mark Ricciuto, who tied with Nathan Buckley, who captained Collingwood to that year's grand final. Robert Harvey (1998 winner) and Shane Crawford (1999) are the other Brownlow winners from the past decade who did not play in that season's grand final.

In contrast, in the years Skilton won his Brownlow medals while playing for South Melbourne — 1959, 1963 and 1968 — his side was ninth (from 12 teams), 11th and ninth, respectively.

It is expected the Cats will poll the most votes ever recorded by a club in a Brownlow count. Essendon holds that record, Bomber players winning a total of 116 votes in 2000 after that side's record-breaking season.

Geelong's result in 2007 is the next best performance — collectively, the Cats polled 106 votes.