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(Sports) Youngster from tiny outback town wins Aussie football's highest honor

Xinhua, September 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Nat Fyfe, who hails from the tiny town of Lake Grace in outback Western Australia, has been crowned the 2015 Brownlow Medallist, Australian football's highest individual award.

Fyfe won the Brownlow, which is awarded to the Australian Football League's fairest and best player each season, with 31 votes beating out last year's winner, West Coast Eagles midfielder Matt Priddis, by three votes.

It was the first time a player from the Fremantle Dockers, a club that was admitted into the league in 1994, has received the honor.

"This is genuinely a team and Fremantle Football Club medal, and it's great to be able to take it back to the football club," Fyfe said in his acceptance speech Monday night.

Fyfe regularly goes back home to Lake Grace, a small outpost of 500 residents in southern Western Australia, to help out on his family's farm where he helps his father round up, shear and transport sheep.

He attended the Brownlow black-tie event, held Monday night before the Grand Final each season in Melbourne, leaning on a cane.

Following the Dockers' heart-breaking preliminary final loss to Hawthorn Friday night, it was revealed Fyfe, who collected 26 possessions and nine clearances, had played almost the entire game with a cracked fibula in his lower leg.

In winning the Brownlow, Fyfe broke the record for most votes in the first eight rounds of the season, surpassing now retired dual-Brownlow Medallist Chris Judd.

The 24-year-old's barnstorming start to the count slowed down as he missed four games late in the season due to injury. He did not poll in the final six rounds.

Fyfe, who has been named the AFL Players Association Most Valuable Player (MVP) the past two seasons, became the first Brownlow Medallist to win the award despite missing at least four games.

In his acceptance speech, Fyfe quipped any midfielder could have won the sport's most coveted prize if they had his secret weapon, the Dockers' 211cm ruckman Aaron Sandilands tapping the ball down to them.

Fyfe was the popular choice for the Brownlow for most the season, with several betting companies paying out on result halfway through the season before injury brought him back to the pack.

In each game of the AFL regular season, the three umpires confer and vote for the three best players on the ground. Endi