PORT ADELAIDE midfielder Travis Boak has moved to the top of the leaderboard in the 2020 SHADFORTH FINANCIAL GROUP AFLCA CHAMPION PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARD after his Round 2 Showdown medal win on Saturday night.
The coaches awarded Boak eight votes for his performance in the 75-point win.
Boak had 24 disposals – second on the field only to Darcy Byrne-Jones’s 25 – to go with five marks, two tackles, four clearances and a team-high 439 metres gained.
The 2019 Best and Fairest also booted a goal on his way to claiming his second Showdown medal.
Port Adelaide claimed a clean sweep of the votes with Steven Motlop receiving seven, Byrne-Jones five, Connor Rozee and Xavier Duursma each receiving four and Todd Marshall two.
No Adelaide player received any votes.
Gold Coast second-gamer Matt Rowell was one of six players league-wide to receive a maximum 10 votes on the weekend, along with St Kilda’s Jack Billings, Zach Merrett from Essendon, North Melbourne’s Todd Goldstein, Melbourne’s Christian Petracca and Brisbane’s Lachie Neale.
Boak’s lead at the top of the leaderboard is two votes over Neale, while Rozee is in a nine-way tie for sixth with 10 votes overall.
Round 2 – votes v Gold Coast
8 votes – Boak (PA)
7 votes – Motlop (PA)
5 votes – Byrne-Jones (PA)
4 votes – Rozee (PA)
– Duursma (PA)
2 votes – Marshall (PA)
Overall leader board
18 votes – Travis Boak (Port Adelaide)
16 votes – Lachie Neale (Brisbane)
14 votes – Todd Goldstein (North Melbourne), Scott Pendlebury (Collingwood)
12 votes – Taylor Adams (Collingwood), Zac Billings (St Kilda), Zak Jones (St Kilda)
11 votes – Jared Polec (North Melbourne), Adam Saad (Gold Coast)
