PREMIER COACHES MVP AWARD 2014

This season will be the first year of the VAFA Premier Section Coaches MVP Award. Since round 1 this year, the coaches of each of the Premier Section sides have been giving best player votes on a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 basis, including players from both sides after every match they have coached in. 
The system is used in the AFL and is known as the Coaches Champion Player of the year. 
The maximum amount of votes a player can get in any game is 10, whereby both coaches gave them 5 votes each. 
Over the opening nine rounds, 24 times have the coaches from both teams adjudicated the same player to have been the best player on the ground. 
One of the beauty’s of the Premier Coaches MVP is that the coaches often reward players that they had requested to play a particular role in their match with votes. We therefore see more defenders and forwards higher up the leaderboard than in a traditional awards category.  
Below we have published the leaderboard of the top 30 after the first nine rounds of the year. At the half way point, Tyson Kruse from University Blacks and Tom Sullivan from St Bernard’s are the joint leaders with 35 votes each. Interestingly, Kruse hasn’t had a 10 vote game yet, whilst Sullivan collected all 10 coaches votes for his Round 8 performance against Beaumaris. 
Just two votes further back is Old Trinity defender Harry Tinney on 33 votes, with Uni Blacks backman Adam Pitt on 30 votes sitting fourth. 
We will publish updates of the leaderboard for round 10 and 11 next week and will publish the votes each week until they go in house for round 16, 17 and 18.  
The winner of the Premier Coaches MVP will be presented at the Woodrow Medal Night at Crown’s River Room on Wednesday 17 September.