Coolamon footballer Jerry Maslin 'surprised' by Jim Quinn Medal win

Maslin tuned in to the online count to see how his brother-in-law, Coolamon coach Jake Barrett, polled and ended the night as a joint winner alongside Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong's Jacob Olsson.

"It was a different one obviously because it was online but we were just chilling out, watching it on the couch," Maslin said.

"I was more watching it to see how Jake polled. By round 10, I was like, hang on a second, I'm going alright here.

"I didn't get an invite or any message. And because I didn't feature in the coaches voting, and reading everyone's tips and what not, I just thought those five boys would be the ones around the mark. I knew I had a good little six or seven week patch through the middle part of the year that I might have scored a few votes.

"It was very surprising."

Maslin was not the only one caught by surprise. A quick phone call to his father, Rod, brought him crashing back to earth.

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"I ran around the lounge room for about 30 seconds and then made a few calls," Maslin said.

"I rang up my old man, his reaction was funny. He's a pretty honest reviewer of how I go and my year. Dad didn't know anything about the vote count, I didn't kick up much of a stink about it or anything like that.

"I rang up Dad and said Dad I've just won the Jim Quinn for the best player in the league and his response was 'as if, I find that hard to believe!"

The medal win completes a remarkable comeback to football for the 25-year-old.

Maslin was one of the region's brightest talents as a teenager but a badly broken leg as an 18-year-old saw him give the game away for five years.

Barrett's signing at Coolamon in 2019 sparked Maslin's decision to return and it is a move that has certainly paid off.

Maslin played as a permanent forward in 2019 but was able to move through the midfield this season after getting more confidence back in his body.

"It was good. The first three weeks it was more just getting confidence in my body and getting back into running out games," he said.

"In 2019, it was very much a year of injuries, and getting to half-time, three-quarter-time and spending the last quarter on the bench because the body wasn't holding up. I just had a lot of niggling injuries all year.

"I did a fair bit of work in the off-season, correcting a few of those things and building confidence back into my body. It was probably after round three where I had that mental shift. I was like 'right, it's not about just getting through games of footy anymore', I started to think about trying to actually play to the best of my ability and trying to focus on playing quality games of footy rather than worrying about just getting out on the park."

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