Dayne Zorko has taken out the 2016 Merrett-Murray Medal as the Brisbane Lions' best and fairest.
Zorko polled 122 votes to claim the honour at the Club Champion awards dinner held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Saturday night.
It is the second time Zorko has won the Club's Fairest and Best award, after being one of four Merrett-Murray medallists in 2015.
Mitch Robinson (110 votes) finished runner-up while Stefan Martin (106 votes) placed third.
Zorko played 20 games in 2016 and celebrated his 100th match in Round 22. He averaged 23.6 disposals this season, including a season high 33 touches against Sydney.
He kicked four goals in the Lions’ big loss to Collingwood in Round 8, and played one of the best halves seen by a Brisbane Lions player in recent seasons against Carlton in Round 21.
Dayne Zorko was the architect of the Lions’ four-point win with a superb individual display.
He finished with 27 touches, three goals, 12 inside 50s, five scoring assists and 12 contested possessions.
Zorko is one of the game’s great success stories, and a triumph for persistence and perseverance.
At 22 he was a highly-regarded player at a local Queensland level who had been overlooked four years in a row by every club in the AFL draft system. Now 27, the Lions vice-captain joins an exclusive group of multiple Merrett-Murray Medal winners.
26-year-old runner-up Mitch Robinson is no stranger to run-with roles. Robinson has been commended in 2016 for his strong series of negating roles on some of the competition’s in-form midfielders, including Matthew Priddis, Lachie Neale, Bryce Gibbs and Sam Mitchell.
Arguably Robinson's best performance was his run-with role on Bryce Gibbs in Round 11, where he limited the Blues star to just 12 possessions while racking up 25 himself, 15 of them contested, and laying eight tackles.
Third-placed Stefan Martin played 20 games in 2016, averaging 27.9 hit-outs. Martin’s best game came in Round 17 against the GWS Giants. He gathered 22 possessions and had 32 hit-outs and five tackles.
Merrett-Murray Medal Top Ten
- Dayne Zorko 122
- Mitch Robinson 110
- Stefan Martin 106
- Pearce Hanley 104
- Tom Rockliff 103
- Daniel Rich 102
- Ryan Bastinac 100
- Darcy Gardiner 97
- Ryan Lester 94
- Harris Andrews 92
Find out who else won awards at the Brisbane Lions' Club Champion event.
