Werribee midfielder Tom Gribble claims VFL Liston Trophy with runaway victory
Six weeks out from the start of the VFL season, Tom Gribble wasn’t in Werribee coach Mark Williams’ plans for Round 1. It was the spark that ignited a career-best year and led to him being crowned the Liston Trophy winner.
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Werribee midfielder Tom Gribble didn’t merely win the VFL’s JJ Liston Trophy last night. He streaked it in.
The crafty and classy left-footer polled votes in 13 of his 18 games to finish on 25, eight clear of first-year Footscray Bulldog Rhylee West.
North Melbourne ruckman Tom Campbell came in third with 15, and Werribee’s Michael Barlow, Port Melbourne’s Shannen Lange and Box Hill’s Marc Pittonet (14 apiece) were equal third.
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Gribble, 24, recorded the highest winning tally for the Liston since Port Melbourne rover Shane Valenti had the same number in 2011.
And only two players have polled more votes to win in the past 39 years — Sam Mitchell (Box Hill Hawks) with 31 in 2002 and Michael Frost (Werribee) with 32 in
1998.
Gribble’s haul reflected a dazzling season under coach Mark “Choco’’ Williams in which he averaged 30 disposals, 15 contested possessions, seven clearances, five tackles and five inside-50s per game.
He and Coburg’s Marcus Lentini led the VFL for disposals and he led the competition outright for inside-50s.
But Gribble revealed last night that his 2019 hadn’t started promisingly.
Six weeks out from the season Williams had put up a possible starting team for Round 1 — and Gribble wasn’t in it.
It was a sting.
“I was down in the dumps for a week,’’ he said.
“I was pretty pissed off. It certainly sparked me. I was probably cruising through our pre-season, to be honest. I was just battling a little bit with the change of coach and coming back for another year. I’d just started full-time work. All those challenges were coming in to my mindset. It sparked me, and it sparked me in a good way.’’
He said he “loved’’ playing under Port Adelaide premiership coach Williams.
Gribble was similarly prolific with his possessions last year, but pulled only two Liston votes.
“I’ve never polled in my life,’’ he said with a laugh.
“I did have no expectations at all. The votes kept coming. It was a nice feeling.’’
He said Williams had encouraged him to kick the ball more, and the umpires had probably noticed.
Williams said he knew none of the Werribee players when he arrived at the club “and I certainly hadn’t heard of Tom Gribble’’.
“I was trying to sort the team out, trying to pick a team based on how players were training, and I said this would be my best 22 if we were starting right now,’’ he said.
“Unfortunately for Tom he wasn’t in it. Obviously he took offence at it and we had a chat about it. I gave him a couple of things he needed to work on him — one of them being his kicking — and away he went. It’s a great credit to his work ethic to win this award tonight.’’
Williams said if any AFL clubs were interested in Gribble, he would be a “late pick with great drive’’.
“He’s a great runner, he’s really smart and he’s an accumulator. He can win stoppage, he can pick his way out of it well,’’ he said.
Gribble has had Type 1 diabetes since he was eight. He said it had its challenges on match days but with the support of the Werribee medical staff he managed it well.
“It’s been interesting this year. I’ve been a bit of a slow starter in games and that’s because I’ll go out with a nice sugar-level reading but when I come in at quarter time the adrenaline has pushed it right up and I’m out at a difficult range,’’ he said.
“Then I’ll slowly come back down through that and I finish games really strongly.’’
Gribble is valued at the Bees for his durability as much as his reliability and creativity: he’s played every match in the past three seasons.
He became Werribee’s sixth Liston Trophy winner, joining Ben Ross (2012), James Podsiadly (2008), Frost (1998), Paul Satterley (1995) and Anthony Eames (1991).
Werribee had another good winner when emerging forward Jake Riccardi received the Fothergill-Round-Mitchell Medal as the VFL’s most promising player.
Tom Freeman (Casey Demons), Lentini (Coburg), Anthony Scott (Footscray) and Harvey Hooper (Port Melbourne) were finalists.
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Richmond’s Craig McRae, who took the Tigers to the minor premiership, was VFL coach of the year.
Meanwhile Darebin Falcons ruck Lauren Pearce won the Lambert-Pearce Medal as the VFL Women’s best and fairest.
The Melbourne AFLW-listed 26-year-old polled 18 votes to join Daisy Pearce (2016) and Katie Brennan (2017) as Falcons winners of the award.
Pearce finished clear of Richmond AFLW-listed playmaker Monique Conti (16 votes), who was joined in the top five on the leaderboard by Essendon’s Cecilia McIntosh (14), Melbourne Uni ball-winner Ash Riddell (12) and Casey Demons co-captain Bianca Jakobsson (10).
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