A career-best performance from Lachie Hunter has seen the Dogs forward pick up eight votes in the AFLCA Champion Player of the Year award.
Hunter polled the most votes of anyone on the field, as awarded by Luke Beveridge and Nathan Buckley, and earned his first votes for the year.
Beveridge lauded the young Dog’s performance, and urged him to maintain a high standard.
“It’s great for Lachie to play as well as he did, he was a really reliable teammate today, he ran hard and he used the ball well and put his head over it.
“He had a really solid game as a winger, forward… If that’s his new benchmark, hopefully he can come close to it week to week, yhat type of game is what we’re after from him.”
The voting from the two coaches was spread, with eight players picking up votes, including Matthew Boyd, Mitch Wallis, Jason Johannisen, Dale Morris and Bob Murphy – who remains at the top of the Bulldogs leader board.
Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe (100) and Sydney’s Dan Hannebery (75) hold their places at the top of the overall leader board.
Round 17 – Western Bulldogs vs Collingwood
8 Lachie Hunter (WB)
7 Steele Sidebottom (Coll)
5 Matthew Boyd (WB)
4 Mitch Wallis (WB)
2 Jason Johannisen (WB)
2 Robert Murphy (WB)
1 Darcy Moore (Coll)
1 Dale Morris (WB)
Western Bulldogs leader board after round 17
34 Robert Murphy
27 Easton Wood
27 Liam Picken
27 Matthew Boyd
22 Jake Stringer
22 Marcus Bontempelli
21 Mitch Wallis
18 Jack Macrae
16 Tory Dickson
14 Luke Dahlhaus
Overall leader board after round 17
100 Nat Fyfe (Frem)
75 Dan Hannebery (Syd)
62 Todd Goldstein (NM)
60 Andrew Gaff (WCE)
60 Matt Priddis (WCE)
55 Scott Pendlebury (Coll)
53 David Armitage (StK)
50 Dayne Beams (Bris)
49 Trent Cotchin (Rich)
49 Josh Kennedy (Syd)
49 David Mundy (Frem)
