Sydney Swans Callum Mils has polled a perfect 10 votes for the AFL Coaches Association’s AFL Champion Player Award following Sydney’s victory over the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba whilst Errol Gulden (7), Tom Hickey (7), Isaac Heeney (3) and Harry Cunningham (1) also polled votes.
Mills kicked two goals, his first time kicking a double to bring his career goal tally to five and had a career high 29 disposals – to go along with eight marks and three tackles.
Mills made the transition back into the midfield in the season opener and John Longmire had plenty of praise for Mills’ versatility.
“We trained him in midfield a couple of years ago, and we lost key starting defenders at the start of the year so we had to push him back and we have been trying to build that defensive back 6 or 7 players since then which has allowed us to push Callum back into the midfield.”
“He was very good on the weekend. He contests really hard and runs hard both ways and If we need him to go back he can. He can go forward like he did on the weekend, and kick a couple of goals, that's a handy addition as well so it just adds some more strings to our bow which is what we have been after.”
Brisbane Lions v Sydney Swans votes – Player (Club)
10 Callum Mills (SYD)
7 Errol Gulden (SYD)
7 Tom Hickey (SYD)
3 Isaac Heeney (SYD)
2 Dayne Zorko (BL)
1 Harry Cunningham (SYD)
In his AFL debut, Errol Gulden also polled seven votes following a performance that finished with three goals and three assists from 19 touches and 10 marks in a performance that earned him a NAB AFL Rising Star nomination.
Tom Hickey polled 7 points in his club debut whilst Heeney and Cunningham also received votes.
The AFL Coaches Association’s AFL Champion Player Award is an award voted by the 18 coaching panels on a 5,4,3,2,1 basis after each home and away game, acknowledging outstanding effort by an individual player in a season.
The Carey-Bunton Medal recognises the best NSW-bred player in the AFL, with the medal will be awarded to the NSW player who records the most votes in the AFL Coaches Association’s Champion Player of the Year Award. The leaderboard after round one is below.
Carey-Bunton Medal Leaderboard
10 Taylor Walker (North Broken Hill) - Adelaide
10 Callum Mills (North Shore) - Sydney Swans
7 Errol Gulden (UNSW-Eastern Suburbs) - Sydney Swans
5 Jacob Hopper (Leeton-Whitton) - GWS Giants
3 Isaac Heeney (Cardiff) - Sydney Swans
3 Matthew Flynn (Narrandera) - GWS Giants
3 Harry Perryman (Collingullie) - GWS Giants
1 Harry Cunningham (Turvey Park) - Sydney Swans
