Josh Kennedy has surged to equal third on the AFL Coaches Association Champion Player of the Year leaderboard following a best-on-ground performance against GWS.
Kennedy collected 35 disposals (21 contested) to be awarded the Brett Kirk Medal as the best player on the ground.
The 27-year-old, who has polled coaches’ votes in the past four weeks, was a stoppage king with 12 clearances and floated forward to add two goals to the Swans’ impressive tally.
Head coaches John Longmire and Leon Cameron thought both Kennedy and Kurt Tippett (five goals) deserved equal praise and awarded the pair nine votes each which has subsequently slingshotted Kennedy (73 votes) from eighth to fourth – equal third with North Melbourne’s Todd Goldstein.
With only two rounds left in the home and away season, Kennedy is too far back to win the award with the midfielder sitting 27 votes behind leader Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe (100).
What Kennedy can do is finish runner-up and overtake teammate Dan Hannebery (85 votes) which should make for an interesting couple of weeks within the Swans’ midfield contingent.
Kennedy and Tippett’s ranking left Harry Cunningham (three), Jarrad McVeigh (three), Kieren Jack (two), Adam Goodes (two), Sam Reid (one) and GWS’ Heath Shaw (one) to share the rest of the allocated votes.
See below for the full list of vote getters and the overall leaderboard.
Round 21 - GWS v Sydney
9 Josh Kennedy (Sydney)
9 Kurt Tippett (Sydney)
3 Harry Cunningham (Sydney)
3 Jarrad McVeigh (Sydney)
2 Kieren Jack (Sydney)
2 Adam Goodes (Sydney)
1 Sam Reid (Sydney)
1 Heath Shaw (GWS)
Overall Leaderboard
100 Nat Fyfe (Fremantle)
85 Dan Hannebery (Sydney)
73 Josh Kennedy (Sydney)
73 Todd Goldstein (North Melbourne)
69 Matt Priddis (West Coast)
68 Andrew Gaff (West Coast)
65 David Mundy (Fremantle)
61 Dustin Martin (Richmond)
60 Scott Pendlebury (Collingwood)
60 Sam Mitchell (Hawthorn)
