Carlton captain Marc Murphy, experienced ruck Matthew Kreuzer and All Australian half-back Sam Docherty have been nominated for the AFL Players Association MVP award. 

The trio, voted by their teammates, are in the running for the Leigh Matthews Trophy, which will be awarded at the 36^th annual AFL Players’ Association MVP Awards on Tuesday 12 September at Peninsula in Docklands. 

While Murphy is automatically in the race for the Best Captain award, Kreuzer has also been nominated in the Most Courageous category.

Exciting youngster Samo Petrevski-Seton has been nominated for the Best First Year player.

The nomination for the MVP award is a two-stage process, with the first requiring players to nominate three teammates for the award, before three nominees from each club are presented to the wider playing group for a vote to decide the winner.

Players cannot vote for their own teammates in stage two of the process. 

A similar process is followed for the Best First Year player and Most Courageous categories, however just one player is nominated from each club. 

The 2017 AFLPA MVP Awards will be broadcast live on Fox Footy on Tuesday 12 September from 8:30pm.

The evening will also see the 2017 AFL Players’ Association 22Under22 team revealed, with young Blues Patrick Cripps and Charlie Curnow eyeing out a spot in the 22-man team after being named in the initial 40-man squad in August.