Tom Stewart’s story of local footballer made good has added another chapter after claiming his second Carji Greeves Medal as Geelong best-and-fairest.
Stewart, who won his first Carji in 2021, became the 27th multiple-winner of the award at Crown Palladium tonight (Thursday).
The South Barwon product polled 135 votes to win by 30 from fellow VFL graduate Tom Atkins on 105, with Gryan Miers finishing third on 93.
With Atkins hailing from St Joseph’s, and Miers from Grovedale, it was the medal’s first local trifecta since 2007 when Gary Ablett Jnr (Modewarre), Jimmy Bartel (Bell Park) and Cameron Ling (St Joseph’s) stood on the podium.
Zach Guthrie (87 votes) and leading goalkicker Jeremy Cameron (69) rounded out the top five.
Selected in the All-Australian for the fifth time, Stewart played all bar one of Geelong’s home-and-away games, receiving votes in 20 of those 22 matches.
He averaged 23 disposals, including a career-high six contested possessions per game, eight marks and seven rebound 50s.
Stewart was also named the club’s Community Champion.
For each of Miers, Atkins and Guthrie, it was their best finish in a Carji Greeves Medal.
Earlier in the night, Atkins was named Best Clubman, and Ollie Henry received the Best Young Player gong.
The Collingwood recruit after kicking 41 goals from 22 games – third only to Cameron and Tom Hawkins at Geelong.
After each game, the senior and assistant coaches review and rate each players performance out of 10. Votes are polled in games where a player’s performance has been deemed of a high quality by the coaching group. All matches are counted towards their final total.
