Kiara Bowers has been crowned the joint winner of the 2021 AFLW Best and Fairest alongside Collingwood's Brianna Davey in a virtual count on Tuesday evening.
The award, which is the equivalent to the Brownlow Medal in the AFL competition, was held around the country with the WA contingent based at Optus Stadium.
Bowers polled 15 votes alongside Davey.
She had three best on ground performances with three votes against West Coast in round two, Adelaide in round three and Carlton in round seven.
She also polled votes in round four, round five and round nine. After trailing going into the final round, her one vote against North Melbourne brought her into a tie with Davey.
Fremantle’s Gemma Houghton, Sabreena Duffy, Hay Miller, Gabby O'Sullivan and Tiah Haynes also polled in the award.
After finishing runner-up to Carlton’s Maddy Prespakis in 2020, Bowers has become the first female Fremantle player to win the award and she joins Nat Fyfe as the only Freo Dockers players to win a league best and fairest.
She was also announced as vice captain of the All Australian team and was last week announced as the winner of the AFLCA Champion Player of the Year award.
During the year she won two best on ground medals from Freo’s two RAC Derby clashes against West Coast.
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Her average of 6.5 clearances per game was just under one clearance per game more than the next best in the league in GWS Giant Alyce Parker.
As expected, Bowers dominated the tackle count with an average of 11 per game, more than four tackles per game than the next best player.
She was the only player to average more than 100 AFL Fantasy points with an average of 108.7 points per game. The next closest was Adelaide’s Ebony Marinoff (97.2) and Collingwood’s Brianna Davey (94.8).
Bowers also ranked in the top 10 for disposals (21.1 per game), metres gained (319) and contested possessions (12.4).
Where Freo earned votes
Round 1 v GWS
3 votes - G. Houghton
2 votes - S. Duffy
Round 2 v West Coast
3 votes - K. Bowers
1 vote - H. Miller
Round 3 v Adelaide
3 votes - K. Bowers
2 votes - G. Houghton
Round 4 v Gold Coast
3 votes - H. Miller
2 votes - G. O'Sullivan
1 vote - K. Bowers
Round 5 v Brisbane
2 votes - K. Bowers
Round 6 v West Coast
3 votes - G. Houghton
2 votes - K. Bowers
1 vote - S. Duffy
Round 7 v Carlton
3 votes - Kiara Bowers
Round 8 v Melbourne
1 vote - Tiah Haynes
Round 9 v North Melbourne
1 vote - Kiara Bowers
