IN the awards season that just keeps on giving, Madison Prespakis has capped off an incredible year by winning the game’s highest individual honour. The superstar Blue was tonight awarded the 2020 AFL Women’s Best and Fairest. 

It is a phenomenal achievement for the 19-year-old, who has only just completed the second season of her career. Prespakis now holds a longer list of achievements than most players would be proud of after their entire careers. 

Prespakis becomes the Club’s first ever AFLW player to win the highest individual League award and joins her male counterparts Brownlow medallists Bert Deacon (1947), John James (1961), Gordon Collis (1964), Greg Williams (1994) and Chris Judd (2010) in becoming the sixth Blue in the Club’s 156-year history to achieve the feat.

Along with the AFL Women’s Best and Fairest, Prespakis is now a dual club best and fairest, dual AFLW All Australian, NAB AFLW Rising Star, AFLPA and Carlton Best First Year Player, AFLPA MVP runner-up and AFLPA 22under22 vice-captain. 

The competition’s best player has achieved all these individual accolades while still maintaining a team-first mentality, bearing the brunt of opposition tags week after week for the good of the team. 

Carlton Senior Coach Daniel Harford acknowledged how a player so young has been able to achieve such unprecedented success.? 

“What Maddy has been able to achieve in her first two seasons, and to be named the competition’s best player tonight, is simply remarkable,” Harford said. 

“Elite in every way, the dedication to her craft and the care for her teammates and her football club, those things make Maddy a shining light for not only Carlton but the entire AFLW competition. 

“If young girls coming through the junior system right now need any inspiration, they only need to look at the superstar running around wearing the No.4 Navy Blue jumper.” 

Carlton President Mark LoGiudice encapsulated just how significant Prespakis’ achievement was in the history of the football club. 

“The Carlton Football Club has had some special players come through our doors over the last 156 years and tonight has further confirmed that Maddy now has her place amongst them.

“It is simply a joy and a privilege to watch Maddy do what she does in a Carlton jumper every single week, the manner in which she represents our football club should make all Carlton members and supporters proud.”