Exciting young midfielder Caleb Serong has joined a number of the AFL’s best footballers as the winner of the NAB AFL Rising Star award.
Serong, who was nominated for round six, topped the voting of the 18 nominees from 2020 which also included teammate Sam Sturt, who was nominated in round one for this three goal performance on debut against Essendon.
The 19-year-old averaged 17 disposals, four tackles and eight contested possessions per game while playing negating roles on the likes of Patrick Dangerfield, Patrick Cripps, Taylor Adams and Luke Parker.
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Serong is the 28th winner of the award, which was named the Ron Evans Medal in 2007 after former AFL Commission Chairman Ron Evans.
He joins the likes of Nathan Buckley, Adam Goodes, Nick Riewoldt, Sam Mitchell and Joel Selwood as past winners.
Serong is the third Fremantle Docker to win the award, joining Paul Hasleby (2000) and Rhys Palmer (2008).
Current teammate Jesse Hogan won the award when he was with Melbourne in 2015 and former Docker Danyle Pearce won the award in 2006 with Port Adelaide.
Serong was thrilled to be recognised for his outstanding debut season.
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“It is a massive honour to receive this award and there are some great players who I look up to who have won the NAB AFL Rising Star in recent years,” Serong said.
“There are some great players who have gone on to do some great things in football and it’s nice to be recognised with those guys and it’s truly humbling and a massive honour.”
“My biggest goal at the start of the year was to play AFL footy and to make my debut, ideally to just keep my spot in the team. I think I set a few goals from the shutdown period just to initially debut and once I made my debut I didn’t want to give up my spot in the team.”
“Ever since I was four or five I wanted to play AFL footy. I just wanted to run around the back yard, kicking the footy, that was just always my dream to play AFL footy. My family have always been there to support me and I love them very much and thank them.”
Fremantle senior coach Justin Longmuir said Serong should be proud of his debut season.
“He deserves it. He’s been a really solid contributor. On the field he’s done a great job with all the challenges we’ve thrown at him, he’s been asked to play on some really good players and done it extremely well while being able to win his fair share of the ball as well. I’m really proud about the way he’s gone about his year,” Longmuir said.
“It’s his competitiveness and the strengths he brings to the table that gave us the confidence as a coaching group to give him those challenges. He prepared for a challenge really well and did his homework and was able to execute most of the time. He’s had a really great year and we’re looking forward to seeing so much more from him in the years to come.”
