While he admitted it was surprising to take home the top gong once again, Bevan Charlton-White was quick to emphasize the role his team played in helping him achieve it.
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The Dubbo Demons skipper and dynamic full forward took out the award after receiving the most votes in the AFL CW's senior men competition this year.
"I was pretty shocked, I really wasn't expecting it, but it was a nice little surprise," Charlton-White said.
"It's always nice to be recognised and receive an award, but that being said, it may be an individual award, but when you're playing as a forward, so much of what you do is reliant on your teammates and what they're doing further up the ground."
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While Charlton-White and the Demons fell short of the grand final berth they'd been eyeing this year, the season has provided plenty of lessons, even in it's harshest moments, for a much improved Dubbo side.
"I must have pulled all my votes at the start of the season, because we were all playing really good team footy back then, but we did drop away a little bit later on this year," Charlton-White said.
"That's been one of the hardest things to take away."
But despite the ultimate result, there's been plenty of positive take-aways for the Demons, with Charlton-White praising the club for battling through some 'significant challenges'.
"There's absolutely no doubt we're heading in the right direction, we've had a couple of significant challenges that we've had to work through with COVID and everything going, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg still in terms of what this group is capable of," Charlton-White said.
Charlton-White, who received the Demons' internal Best and Fairest honour in 2018, was grateful for the support of his teammates through what has been a trying and difficult pre-season lead-in in 2020.
"You can't pull votes unless you're playing good team footy and winning games and my teammates really helped us get there, that's really what it came down to at the start of the season there," Charlton-White said.
"The whole club has really made me feel welcome the last few seasons I've been playing there, a lot of people think I've been there forever, but I've only been there a couple of seasons at this point and I'm looking forward to the future there."
