An injured shoulder and Fremantle midfielder Nat Fyfe were the only hurdles between Gary Ablett and his sixth AFL Players’ MVP.
In what was one of the closest counts in recent Players’ Association history, Fyfe edged out record-holder Ablett to claim his first MVP.
Fyfe finished the count with 945 votes, ahead of Gary Ablett (787 votes), with Lance Franklin (428), Dyson Heppell (274) and Josh Kennedy (234) rounding out the top five.
Ablett, who has won five of the past seven MVP’s, still enjoyed the night.
“It’s a great night. I’ve been fortunate enough to win the MVP on a few occasions, and it’s an award I really value, to be voted by your peers as the best player is a great feeling and I’m really pleased for Nat this year,” Ablett said.
Despite not taking out the major award, Ablett was rapt that the GC SUNS were still prevalent at the awards ceremony, with six players named in the AFL Players’ 22Under22 team.
“It was great to see the SUNS well represented during the night, to have six players named in the 22Under22 team is fantastic recognition for the club and the selected players’ individual development.
“What their selection demonstrates is that we have a really strong core of players coming through that will hopefully see us playing finals footy this time next year,” he added.
In other awards presented tonight Joel Selwood lived up to his reputation as one the fiercest competitors in the game, taking out the Most Courageous Award for the second consecutive year.
Luke Hodge was named the Best Captain, presented by L’Oreal Men Expert, ahead of Selwood and Ablett.
GC SUNS midfielder and last year’s winner, Jaeger O’Meara, presented the prized Best First Year Player to Marcus Bontempelli, who was a runaway winner, continuing his excellent debut season for the Bulldogs. Bontempelli took out the award ahead of St Kilda’s Luke Dunstan and Brisbane’s Lewis Taylor.
Jonathon Griffin was awarded the Education and Training Excellence Award, while Michael Gleeson from The Age won the Grant Hattam Trophy for Excellence in Sports Journalism for his article titled “On a wing and a prayer with footy’s faithful”, which explores religion in the AFL, with a focus on the players who let their faith define who they are, not their football.
The Voting Process
The MVP voting is a two-stage process, beginning with each player voting for the three teammates he considers to have been the most valuable this season. Each club’s votes are then tallied to form a nomination list comprising 54 players across the 18 teams.
Then, in the second round of voting, all AFL players vote for their MVP on a 3, 2, 1 basis from the nominees of the 17 other clubs. The votes are tallied, and the player with the highest score wins the honour of MVP.
