Congratulations to Stephenson for taking out this year's AFL Rising Star award. I don't think his victory was in doubt but now it's confirmed.

Congratulations, also, to our two nominees for each scoring some of the minor votes from judges. Florent finished equal 5th with 10 votes, while Ronke picked up a couple of votes.

The final vote tally was as follows:

1st Jaidyn Stephenson (Collingwood) - 52 votes
2nd Tom Doedee (Adelaide) - 42 votes
3rd Alex Witherden (Brisbane) - 32 votes
​4th Jack Higgins (Richmond) - 11 votes
5th Jack Henry (Geelong) - 10 votes
5th Oliver Florent (Sydney) - 10 votes
7th Cam Rayner (Brisbane) - 4 votes
8th Ben Ronke (Sydney) - 2 votes
9th Aaron Francis (Essendon) - one vote
9th Ed Richards (Western Bulldogs) - one vote

I am surprised Rayner didn't poll more votes. He took a while to get going but his second half of the season was very very good (better than most of the players on this list). I have little doubt he'll land up a better player than Higgins, for example (comparison picked just because of the similarity in where they played this season).

Richards' season was also probably worthy of more than a single vote.