Roscoe and Ricky rise to the top plus every leaderboard from the SFNL vote count

The best SFNL player of the past two years won the league’s top award, while one player’s only votes for the year in the final round stopped his teammate from winning. See every leaderboard here.

He came home like a steam train.

Zak Roscoe’s command on Division 1 of the Southern league over the past two years has been capped with the competition’s coveted Kingsley Ellis Medal.

The damaging midfielder polled 14 votes in the last five rounds of the season to pip Dingley full forward Caleb Lewis by a vote.

Roscoe’s win is all the more impressive considering he was unable to complete a pre-season and did not poll until almost a third of the way into the year.

“I think it’s sort of coincided with a bit of match fitness, not having a pre-season affected me a bit early on,” Roscoe said in July, ahead of his five-game burst.

“Now I am feeling as fit as I was in the last couple of the seasons, it helps me work over an opponent over four quarters and keep speed on the game.”

Zak Roscoe fights away a tackler. (Photo by Josh Chadwick)

One of Roscoe’s three-vote games, was his demolition job of Bentleigh.

He collected 30 disposals, six clearances, 13 score involvements and kicked 5.5

Roscoe ran three votes behind ineligible St Paul’s McKinnon star Kye Beveridge, who would have won had he not been suspended for rough conduct in round 3.

Fellow Bulldog Matthew Kreymborg gave a third league medal a shake, with 19 votes despite missing five weeks with a fractured leg.

Smooth movers Sean Lai (Cheltenham) and Sean Downie (East Brighton) rounded out the Division 1 top vote-getters.

Doveton’s Ricky Johnson took home the Bennett Medal as the Division 2’s best and fairest player with a league-high 26 votes.

Johnson remarkably polled three votes on seven occasions to take out the count.

Highett’s Jacob Duscher needed three votes in the final round to pass Johnson but collected two.

Duscher’s teammate Sam Stephens polled the three votes in the final round – his only votes for the entire season.

The Division 3 count was a nailbiter.

Black Rock captain Stuart Wines topped the count with 17 votes, which was only two more than fifth place.

Carrum Patterson Lakes’ Matthew Baxter was on his way to a second successive Flack Medal before Wines polled three in the final game.

Hampton added yet another accolade to its memorable Division 4 campaign, with a second successive league medallist.

Finley Cooke burst out to a healthy lead courtesy of 11 votes between rounds 7 and 11.

Cooke finished with 24 votes, two votes ahead of Hallam’s Matt Neve and five ahead of Lyndale’s Brendon Groenendyk.

SEE EVERY LEADERBOARD …