However, over the years, the night has turned into much more than that. For those that get to attend, it is the fashion night of the year with the red carpet rolled out for the guests, with most attention on the players and their partners. This year they even erected a grandstand alongside the red carpet for the crowds that just want to catch a glimpse of these "celebraties" arriving.

For the girlfriends, wives, mothers and daughters – for most of the year, the game's forgotten people – it is a chance to share in the glamour of it all. The fashion has become as important as the award. The fashion writers judged Rebecca Twigley's "backless and almost frontless dress" the "Brownlow of fashion".

Faine, by all accounts a serious and thoughtfull journalist, took up the issue as his opening piece the following morning declaring the event a "skin fest" and sending the wrong message about the how AFL players view women. It's a well used phrase, he said, that the players' partners are referred to as their "handbags" - serving no useful purpose than to look pretty. The player with the most glamorous partner wearing the most daring outfit gets the most attention. Faine's arrgument is that the women are there just to make their men look good. The wrong message he says when the year started off with several players being accused of sexual misconduct.

At first I agreed with him. I had watched the last part of the event on TV and how the cameras had lingered on Twigley. I wondered if she really felt comfortable in that dress or whether it was something she felt pressured to do. The first few callers responding to Faine didn't surprise me. A woman agreeing with most of his analysis but questioning whether he was suggesting that women who wore sexy outfits were responsible for unwanted sexual advances. A man suggesting we were all being a bit precious.

Then a caller who surprised me. Faine's colleague, Drive presenter Virginia Trioli (also author of Generation f: Sex, power, and the young feminist). Trioli disagreed with Faine. She noted that "no-one is dressing these women. They are dressing themselves. These are beautiful strong women. There is a big difference between 'sexy' and 'sexual'."

It made me think. In fact I thought about it all day. In the end, I think I agree more with Trioli that with Faine. These women are all free to dress as they like. The pressure to be daring is more likely to come from other women than from their male partners. If I was a woman, I would like to wear something stunning.

I'm sure many of the men who were there see this and think "woman = sex". Particularly the younger, macho male players. But in one sense that's their problem. That's for them to understand that women have the right to look sexy without that being a free invitation for them to sexually abuse them.

It is our (men's) problem. It's up to us to deal with it. And deal with it we must.