Carlton best-and-fairest: Jacob Weitering wins first John Nicholls Medal
Jacob Weitering won a thrilling battle of Carlton No.1 draft picks to claim his first best-and-fairest and cap an outstanding 2020 season.
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Jacob Weitering had to wait exactly five months after his last game of the 2020 season, but the Carlton defender was finally rewarded on Friday night with his first John Nicholls Medal.
Weitering, 23, polled 137 votes to take out the Blues‘ best-and-fairest award – which had been delayed from last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and again by the recent Melbourne lockdown.
Young gun Sam Walsh (126 votes) and reliable midfielder Ed Curnow (103 votes) rounded out the top three.
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Weitering, who was the 2015 No.1 draft pick, was presented with the award in front of teammates and coaches at Ikon Park.
Carlton coach David Teague said Weitering had thrived on the extra responsibilities thrust on him in recent seasons.
“Last year, we asked Jacob to take the next step as a key defender and a leader. He not only welcomed that responsibility, he thrived on it,” Teague said.
“What is great about Jacob is how much he cares about making us a better football club. He pushes himself to compete and beat his opponents, he pushes his teammates to be better, leading from the front with his work ethic and his actions.
“He is now reaping the rewards of his hard work as we’ve seen, and as a football club we couldn’t be prouder to have Jacob crowned our 2020 John Nicholls Medallist.”
Weitering’s 2020 season included his elevation into the club’s leadership group, selection in the 40-man All-Australian squad as well as his third appearance in the AFLPA’s 22under22 side.
Contracted until the end of the 2025 season, Weitering was a key plank of the Blues’ defence last year, averaging 11 disposals, three marks and five intercept possessions from 17 games in his fifth season at the club.
He was also rewarded with Bill Lanyon Inner Blue Ruthless Award – recognising a player’s bravery, resilience and commitment each week.
Walsh’s exceptional start to his AFL career has seen him finish runner-up to Weitering in the best-and-fairest, following on from his fourth-placing in his debut season of 2019.
Teague said of 20-year-old Walsh: “To see Sam finish runner-up is a testament to not only his skill but his character and how he holds himself as a Carlton person.”
“He was asked to go out on the wing last season for the team and to see him execute that role in the manner in which he did makes him a great role model for our entire playing group.”
“Ed (Curnow) is no stranger come John Nicholls Medal night. He gets the job done week in, week out and leaves the field after every game having given his all. There is no surprise he has finished within the top three once again.”
The others in the Blues’ top 10 were Lachie Plowman (95) in fourth place, followed by Liam Jones (83), Jack Martin (81), Sam Docherty (76) Levi Casboult (75), Patrick Cripps (73) and retiree Kade Simpson (68).
Young ruckman Tom De Koning took home the Best Young Player Award, while Nic Newman won the Best Clubman.
2020 John Nicholls Medal leaderboard:
1. Jacob Weitering 137 votes
2. Sam Walsh 126 votes
3. Ed Curnow 103 votes
4. Lachie Plowman 95 votes
5. Liam Jones 83 votes
6. Jack Martin 81 votes
7. Sam Docherty 76 votes
8. Levi Casboult 75 votes
9. Patrick Cripps 73 votes
10. Kade Simpson 68 votes
BLUES SKIPPER DOCHERTY OPENS UP ON CANCER SCARE
One of the first calls Carlton co-captain Sam Docherty received when news of his malignant testicular tumour became public last November was from someone who knew precisely what he was going through.
It was former Blue Sam Rowe, who encountered — and overcame — a similar challenge almost a decade earlier.
In Rowe, Docherty had someone he could speak to about the physical and psychological challenges he was about to encounter and how he could potentially use his past challenges as a spur to tackle the one immediately in front of him.
“I only told my family and a few close friends (about the diagnosis) to start with,” Docherty told the Sunday Herald Sun in an exclusive interview.
“But when the media release came out, ‘Rowey’ called me and we had a good chat.
“It was quite funny, actually. I said to him, ‘Everyone seems to think this is character building, but I feel like my character has already been built enough’.
“Saying that made me laugh.
“I said ‘I must be going to have one hell of a character at the end of all this’.”
Three and a bit months on from the successful surgery to remove the malignant tumour as well as an ankle operation undergone a week later, the 27-year-old Blues defender is thankfully fit and healthy again
He is looking expectantly to what this season can bring for him and for Carlton.
He can afford to look back with greater clarity at the whirlwind that was 2020 – for him personally and more broadly for the world – and takes some well-deserved pride in the fact that he took everything that was thrown at him.
He emerged through the personal and professional challenges with his confidence and football career well and truly restored.
He is hoping 2021 can return to a semblance of normality.
Is it any wonder?
Let’s take a restock of the experiences Docherty encountered last year.
The first was the best.
He married wife Natalie — who has supported him through two reconstructions and so much more — in January 2020, which came in between the summer bushfires and the onset of a global pandemic that changed everything.
Then he played his first AFL game in 936 days — against Richmond in Round 1 in front of eerily empty MCG stands, following his long knee layoff.
The initial lockdown following Round 1 meant he had to almost do a second pre-season in the space of a few months.
Then, not long after the footy resumed, he packed for what was meant to be a month away from home. It turned out to be for several months, and it was only late in the year when his wife got the chance to join him.
As the joint skipper with Patrick Cripps, he worked tirelessly in the Blues’ hub to keep the young group engaged, fast-tracking the bonds he believes will stand them in good stead.
He even played off a few four-day breaks, seamlessly slotting back into the Blues’ backline, playing 16 matches with his form very strong before an injury ended his season late.
But having noticed a lump on one of his testicles during the middle stages of the season during the hub period, he and the club doctors resolved to get it tested if it hadn’t improved by the time he returned to Melbourne.
“It was just a sort of watch-and-see at that stage, if it didn’t get any better by the time we got home, we were going to get it scanned,” Docherty said.
“That is what inevitably happened.”
He had spent some much-needed time with his wife following the end of the Blues’ improved season – rising from 16th to 11th last year – which provided a welcome respite from the all-encompassing footy atmosphere inside the hub.
The pair drove back to Victoria from Queensland, arriving on the Sunday before the Melbourne Cup.
It only took a day for Docherty’s next challenge to emerge. “We just got home when the borders opened,” he explained.
“We got home on the Sunday, and on the Monday I was actually pushing to get my ankle operated on, as it wasn’t right. When you look back on it, I don’t think your body is really going to fix your ankle when you have got some other stuff going on.”
Docherty went in for an ultrasound on the Monday, hoping it would find only a routine cyst.
He hadn’t been home long from the appointment when he took a phone call that shook him and his wife.
“I got the call from the club doctor saying we think you have got (testicular cancer) … I can’t remember if it was, ‘We think you have got it’ or, ‘You have got it’.
“The natural reaction of someone my age is you just don’t think it can occur, but I now know differently.
“With cancer, you think elderly … you think life-threatening … you think death.”
Making matters even more complicated, he had ankle surgery the week after.
Given the news, it would have been easy for Docherty to feel angry, or feel as if he had been dealt another dud hand.
But the leader who played more than his fair share of card games inside the Blues’ hub turned his thoughts to those around him, and resolved to throw everything into his recovery.
“It’s tough on the people around you,” he said.
“You get the news, you fear the worst and you come to the realisation that you have to go in and get the operation. You are going to lose a testicle and it is an unfortunate thing to go through, but there is not a lot you can do about it.”
He didn’t wallow; he tried as hard as he could to look forward, not back.
“Nothing in life is fair, really,” he said.
“So many things happen to different people for different reasons and there is always a positive and there is always a negative from everything that happens to you.
“The thing is you get to choose the path you go down. I am not saying it is an easy path. But you always choose the positive one and find the inner meaning behind what is happening to you, and why it is happening.
“I find that is the best way for me to deal with everything that has happened to me in my life.
“I have always taken the sort of message of positivity and this is going to shape me to be a different person, and inevitably it does.
“It changes your mindset; it changes your thought processes.
“I feel like I am a better person from it. It has been a bloody tough process and a bit of an unknown. It has definitely been tough on my wife, and my family.
“But inevitably, life moves on. I am healthy now and I feel good now.”
Docherty is back in full training and looking forward to the Blues‘ first pre-season clash, which excites him after lay-off from the two surgeries late last year.
“I had the double whammy,” he said of the surgeries.
“I basically couldn’t do anything for six weeks. They had to cut through the abdominal wall … it took a lot out of me physically and mentally.”
He said his wife had been incredible supportive through the situation – “she has put up with a lot over my whole career.”
Docherty is driven by the continued development of this Carlton group that he thinks can go a long way in the future.
“It’s exciting, we’ve got a really professional group at the moment that rocks up and wants to compete,” he said.
“We are looking for some serious growth in being able to compete for longer in games which will hopefully put us in a position where we can be thereabouts come finals time.
“But we understand we need to earn the right to be there.”
Having not played a final in his 108 AFL games since his 2013 debut with Brisbane, Docherty says this quest to play finals footy drives him as strong as it ever has.
“I haven’t played in one yet,” he said. “I would be flat if I got to the end of my footy career and didn’t get to experience playing finals.
“But I also believe you have to get there with the right group to make an impact. I think being able to be here (at Carlton) for the dip out (when the club was struggling) and then to be here as part of building this group, it’s exciting.”
If the Blues can channel the resilient, inspiring characteristics their two skippers exude, that elusive finals berth won’t be far away.
‘STATE OF SHOCK’: DOCHERTY’S LESSONS FROM CANCER SCARE
Inspirational Carlton co-captain Sam Docherty has urged people to get regular health checks and seek prompt medical advice if they notice any issues with their bodies, saying early intervention late last year may have saved his life.
Docherty was diagnosed with a malignant testicular tumour in November after initially finding a lump while the club was in its Queensland hub.
A decision from him and club doctors to have an ultrasound on his return to Melbourne six weeks after the Blues’ 2020 season ended saw him undergo surgery to have the tumour removed.
He is fit and well again, and gearing up for a big year for the Blues.
Docherty, 27, said he had been shocked by the diagnosis at the time, but couldn’t be more appreciative for the support of his wife Natalie, his family and friends, as well as the medical experts.
“It was a state of shock,“ Docherty told the Sunday Herald Sun in an exclusive interview.
“The natural reaction of someone my age (being told they had cancer) is you just don’t think it can occur, but I now know differently.
“With cancer, you think elderly … you think life threatening … you think death.”
But his mindset changed immediately after coming to terms with the initial diagnosis, knowing he had to do what needed to be done.
He also resolved to spread the message to others that early intervention is the best course of action, particularly for those people - many of them young males - who are reluctant to get regular medical tests.
“I don’t think I am abnormal but I am like ‘if something is not right, I am going to go and get it checked out’, but I am learning there are a lot of guys who don’t (have that view),” Docherty said. “But I just don’t see the negative about going in and getting yourself tested.
“At least by doing that, if they find something, there is at least a plan to fix it. There are obviously some things that you can’t fix, but you have to find out.
“Inevitably, it is what it is. It is your body, you can’t change it and the longer you leave it, it gives you a lesser percentage of being able to get over it.”
Just four days after receiving the bad news late last year, Docherty was sent for surgery, which was successful, and set him on the road to recovery.
“If I had forgotten to do it (get tested) then, I could have gone another two or three weeks (without being tested), and we would have been two or three weeks back.
“I am healthy now, and I feel good.”
He has also overcome separate ankle surgery from last year - which took place the week after his cancer surgery - and he is now preparing for Carlton’s first pre-season clash.
“I think there will be regular updates of scans and we do whatever needs to be done to make sure nothing spreads and nothing goes any further,” he said.
“If it does, we will cross that path if it happens. ”
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