Cousins won the Brownlow Medal, the AFL's highest individual player award, on 19 September 2005 with 20 votes, ahead of teammate Daniel Kerr on 19 votes and Nick Dal Santo on 18 votes. Cousins was the favourite to win with bookmakers, after five previous top-10 finishes. He did not attend the award ceremony in Melbourne, remaining in Perth to prepare for West Coast's Grand Final match against Sydney Swans the following weekend. His celebration was "very quiet, I went over to the bar, bought the folks a bottle of champagne, had one lemonade and went up to the (hotel) room. I managed to get to sleep before midnight, which was a bonus." West Coast's last training session in Perth before travelling to their first Grand Final game since 1994 was attended by 3,000 fans. Trevor Nesbitt, West Coast's chief executive, said he expected that the combination of the team's Grand Final appearance, Cousins' Brownlow win, and Chris Judd's Brownlow win in the previous year, would lead to a turnover of around $2 million in club merchandise. Nesbitt added: