“I feel pretty good. The gratitude is great,” he said after his win.
“I put a lot of work into footy – the coaching side of things as well as playing.
“The recognition is great. Obviously team success is what everyone strives for, and we get the opportunity to do that on Saturday, which we’ve worked very hard towards.
“Getting recognition for individual efforts is fantastic as well, so I’m very proud to have won this medal, but we do have bigger things to come in the future.”
Thompson admitted he was surprised to win the award. It was his first league best-and-fairest win after finishing runner-up in the Geelong Football League’s Mathieson Medal count while playing for Leopold in 2016.
“Plenty of people told me they thought I was a chance, but I’ve been to these things before and I’ve never really done very well at them,” he said.
“I honestly didn’t put myself too high up there. There were a couple of surprises. I probably thought Swifts midfielder Ryan Folkes was going to be a bit higher, and Laharum’s Robbie Miller.”
Thompson also paid tribute to runner-up Bill Hansen of Rupanyup, who he said had ‘a fantastic year’.
He credited his success to the fact that he was more settled in his coaching role this season.
“I think being in the second year of coaching, in the first year you concentrate a lot more on the coaching side of things and forget about your playing a little bit – it takes away from your playing a little bit,” he said.
“Second year you feel more comfortable, you know your roles and you can concentrate on playing football a bit more.
“That’s what happened this year. I concentrated once I got out there on actually winning the footy and playing how I want to play, knowing our team is well taken care of in terms of our structures from the two years that I’ve coached now.”
Thompson finished the count on 23 votes – two ahead of Hansen and five ahead of Kaniva-Leeor Untied’s Hamish Bennett and Harrow-Balmoral team-mate Pekin.
Thompson was also named the league’s best opposition player, voted on by coaches.
Swifts full forward Paul Summers was the league’s leading goal-kicker for the season with a tally of 115, while his young team-mate Noah Stirling was named best under-21 player.
Reserves
Noradjuha-Quantong’s Colby Wilde and Swifts’ Mathew Tober shared the Richie Dunlop Medal as the reserves best and fairest. Due to forfeits in the division, votes were averaged across the available number of games each player could have played.
Wilde polled 15 votes and Tober had 16, each at an average of one per game.
Noradjuha-Quantong’s Thomas East was runner-up with 14 votes at an average of 0.93, edging out Harrow-Balmoral’s Quentin Wilmott and Swifts’ Adam Leslie, who also had 14 votes each but at an average of 0.88. Leslie was also the league’s leading goal kicker with 96.
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