Fremantle young gun Rhys Palmer has topped of his amazing debut season by taking out this years Rising Star award and was presented with the Ron Evans medal on Wednesday for his achievement.
Palmer, 19, was the clear favourite to take out the award at Melbourne’s Crown Palladium on Wednesday afternoon. However some experts were predicting the young excitement machine at Hawthorn, Cyril Rioli, to cause an upset. This was not the case however he wasn’t far behind, only 7 votes behind Palmer (44) with a total of 37 votes.
Palmer and Rioli were the two clear leaders on the day but that didn’t stop Richmond’s Trent Cotchin from polling plenty of votes (21) and Carlton’s number one draft Matthew Kreuzer also polled double figures with 11 votes.
Other players to poll votes were Fremantle’s Garrick Ibbotson (7), West Coast’s Ben McKinley (6) and Collingwood’s Nathan Brown (3).
Taken at pick number seven in the 2007 National Draft, Palmer played a total of 20 games in his debut season averaging over 23 disposals including a personal best of 31 disposals against Port Adelaide at Aami Stadium in round 17.
Palmer becomes the second Docker to win the award, Paul Hasleby win the Rising Star in 2000.
FULL LIST OF NOMINEES
Round 1 – Bachar Houli (Essendon)
Round 2 – Josh Hill (Western Bulldogs)
Round 3 – Rhys Palmer (Fremantle)
Round 4 – Kieren Jack (Sydney Swans)
Round 5 – Ben McKinley (West Coast)
Round 6 – Cyril Rioli (Hawthorn)
Round 7 – Austin Wonaeamirri (Melbourne)
Round 8 – Kurt Tippett (Adelaide)
Round 9 – Garrick Ibbotson (Fremantle)
Round 10 – Nathan Brown (Collingwood)
Round 11 – Matthew Kreuzer (Carlton)
Round 12 – Trent Cotchin (Richmond)
Round 13 – Jarryd Morton (Hawthorn)
Round 14 – Colin Garland (Melbourne)
Round 15 – Jack Riewoldt (Richmond)
Round 16 – Kyle Reimers (Essendon)
Round 17 – Brett Ebert (West Coast)
Round 18 – Gavin Urquhart (North Melbourne)
Round 19 – Shaun Grigg (Carlton)
Round 20 – Cale Morton (Melbourne)
Round 21 – Bradd Dalziell (Brisbane Lions)
Round 22 – Alipate Carlile (Port Adelaide)
