Ocean Grove’s Sam Walsh has won the NAB AFL Rising Star award.
The number one draft pick was an almost unanimous pick for the award with only one judge out of 11 not having the Carlton star as their first choice.
Walsh won the award with 54 votes ahead of Port Adelaide’s Connor Rozee (42 votes) and Richmond’s Sydney Stack (28 votes).
He received the Ron Evans Medal, a $20,000 personal investment folio and a dedicated personal banker, courtesy of NAB, at a function in Melbourne.
The midfielder played all 22 matches in his debut season. Walsh looked right at home at the MCG in his first game against Richmond in Round One and went on to average 25.2 touches, 9.6 contested possessions and 5.1 marks to become Carlton’s first ever NAB AFL Rising Star.
In the final round, Walsh added to his impressive season by breaking the record for the most disposals for a first-year player in a season, surpassing Toby Greene’s previous record of 539 possessions.
Walsh’s nomination came in Round Four of the 2019 Toyota AFL Premiership Season after he gathered 28 possessions, 13 of those contested with a 79 per cent disposal efficiency, six marks and six tackles against Gold Coast.
