Two of league’s leading goalkickers for season 2024, Murchison-Toolamba’s James Lloyd and Lancaster’s Zac Cerrone, along with the competition’s best big man — Shepparton East ruckman Tom McCluskey — and last year’s Avenel winner Braydon Avola are at short odds to be at the top of the leader board.
Jack Exell, who led the league for goalkicking in 2022, has proven that forwards are more than capable of catching the attention of the umpires, although he did win the McNamara Medal after Stanhope’s goalkicking mid-fielder Ryan Semmel was ruled ineligible due to suspension.
Exell, the son of Stanhope premiership coach and three-time leading goalkicker Gavin, won the league best and fairest two years ago while playing with Violet Town.
This year James Lloyd has kicked 137 goals to win his second straight league goalkicking award after bagging 74 majors last year. His tally is the most since league legends Perry Meka (149 goals in 2006), Damien Yze (154 in 2002) and Danny Irwin (138 in 1999) were the best players out of the goal square.
He has kicked nine goals in a game on four occasions, which should pretty much guarantee him umpire recognition of some sort in all of those games (the Grasshoppers didn’t lose a game during the season).
He also has bags of 10, 11, 12, 14 and 19, which would be pretty hard to ignore. Conservatively speaking he should collect about 21 votes. That would have been enough to secure the title in all of the past three seasons (winners have scored 20 — Avola and Exell — and 18, Lancaster’s Tom Davies in 2021 in a shortened season).
Cerrone did not feature as prominently in the voting as expected last season, despite winning his club best and fairest in a premiership year, but has kicked 28 more goals this season.
His 71 goals have come while sharing his time between the midfield and attack.
He should have a walk-up 12-vote start from a period between round eight and 12 when he kicked an amazing 42 goals. There are then another four games, at a minimum, when good judges have him in the best couple of players on the ground.
Big men are hard to ignore and McCluskey has been the best in the KDL, named in his team’s best players in 15 of its 19 games (including finals).
That is the most alongside another proven vote catcher, Longwood’s Jye Formosa.
Avenel’s 2023 league best and fairest, Avola, has been in the best on a dozen occasions this season and has kicked 31 goals for his season.
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