North Albury best and fairest Jackson Weidemann has joined VFL club Port Melbourne Borough.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The backman bolted in the Hoppers' top award on Friday night, polling 151 votes to more than double runner-up Clay Moscher-Thomas (73) and Sam Hodge (71).
"Through the pre-season I got myself a strong base, the goal for the season was to be consistent and play my role and I feel like I did that," he offered.
It's the 21-year-old-year's second successive best and fairest after winning junior club Turvey Park's last year during the COVID-shortened AFL Riverina Championship.
"My form's probably built on a couple of pre-seasons, I played the six games at Turvey and that gave me a lot of confidence, just hit the ground running again last pre-season and it got better and better," he suggested.
"It definitely gave me a lot of confidence and an indication of where I was at and what I could improve on."
The Hoppers had lost a host of players over recent years, so it was always going to be a slow rebuild under new coach Luke Norman.
MORE SPORT NEWS
As expected, North didn't win a game, but Weidemann's effort to be one of the league's leading possession winners, from half-back, was inspirational and Port Melbourne signed him last week.
"I've always wanted to chase the best footy I can, that was why I moved to Albury from Wagga. I didn't think this (VFL) would be a chance, but I've put in hard work and dedicated myself to it," he explained, adding North will be his second club.
Norman couldn't have been more impressed with Weidemann.
"We want our kids to better themselves in sport and life and if that's an opportunity at Port Melbourne, we'll support Jackson 100 per cent," he declared.
Meanwhile, Connor Clarke (73) won the reserves best and fairest from Mitch Wadley (59), while Luke Boothey (122) claimed the under 18s from Archer Gardiner (99).
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark dailyadvertiser.com.au
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters