Carlton's B&F was held last night. The results;
Winner: Dayna Finn
Second place: Harriet Cordner
Third place: Erone Fitzpatrick
Equal fourth place: Poppy Scholz and Maddy Hendrie
Fifth place: Sophie McKay
Most Valuable BlueBagger: Erone Fitzpatrick
Best Finals Player: Dayna Finn
Coaches Award: Maddy Hendrie
Rookie of the Year: Poppy Scholz and Sophie McKay
Some impressive results:
[1] Maddie Hendrie was identified as one of our weakest links as the season neared, as she hadn't done much. She stepped up this year and managed the Coaches' Award. Congratulations for a season that has turned her career around.
[2] Harriet Cordner also deserves a mention after what may be her best season, after having being discarded by Melbourne and Richmond. She may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but (33 at the moment), but has also addressed her distracters in the best possible way.
[3] Our 2 kids, Sophie McKay and Poppy Scholz made a splash. May they continue to do so!
[4] Our Irish recruiters deserve a pat on the back as well, with Ronny Fitzpatrick and Dayna Finn highlighting their year with 3rd and 1st respectively.
Hopefully, our next crop can show the same sort of improvement in 2026.
[5] Note the good players who didn't get a mention: Mimi Hill, Abbie McKay, Jess Good, Bree Harrington to mention just a few. That bodes well to have players of this calibre not dominating.
A huge mention to Maddie Guerin as well: she was struggling for much of the season but her last month was nothing short of brilliant. Hopefully, she can reproduce that form in 2026: she needs some luck after her injuries.
Well-deserved awards to Dayna, Harriet, Erone, Maddy, Poppy and Sophie.
It’s a changing of the guard, and more so with the departure of Kez Peterson.
Nobody likes the tap on the shoulder, especially fans when it happens to a fan favourite, but it's always better to go a season early than a season late! ;)
It would have been nice to see Peterson side by side with Cordner, if they were both at their peak, fit and firing, but it won't ever happen so it's just a pipe dream.
In any case, it looks to me like the coach is taking the AFLW side in a different direction, I hope the AFL team is watching. It's amazing the difference just a couple of players can make, I can also see this happening with the AFL squad as long as we don't cling to the old ways.
It'd be good if they released the top 10, rather than just the top 5.
Hendrie the big surprise from the bunch. Everything else pretty much as expected.