Marcus Bontempelli, Luke Dahlhaus and Jack Macrae have been nominated for the Leigh Matthews Trophy as the AFL Players’ Association’s Most Valuable Player the AFLPA announced today.

The winner will be crowned at the 36^th annual MVP Awards on Tuesday, 12^th September at Peninsula in Docklands and televised live on Fox Footy.

Nominations for the Award are a two stage process where players nominate three teammates, before the three nominees from each club are presented to the wider playing group for a final vote.

Players cannot vote for their own teammates in the second stage of the process.

If either player were to win the award they would be the first Bulldog to win the Leigh Matthews trophy since Luke Darcy saluted in 2002.

There have been 27 winners of the award since Matthews Trophy took it home in 1982 with Gary Ablett (five), Greg Williams Wayne Carey, Chris Judd, Michael Voss and Nat Fyfe (two) the only multiples.

As the Bulldogs’ 2017 skipper, Bob Murphy is automatically nominated for the Best Captain Award.