{"id":160524,"date":"2025-09-22T07:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T07:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/160524\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T07:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T07:22:08","slug":"lions-stars-in-touching-distance-perfect-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/160524\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions stars in touching distance, perfect Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__summary\">\n                Who impressed the coaches in week three of finals?\n            <\/p>\n<p>                                Will Ashcroft celebrates a goal during the Preliminary Final between Collingwood and Brisbane at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 20, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n<p>BRISBANE pair Hugh McCluggage and Will Ashcroft are well in the race for this year&#8217;s Gary Ayres Award as Geelong skipper Patrick Dangerfield picked up a perfect 10 votes after his dominant performance on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>The Lions midfielders were awarded nine and five votes, respectively, after starring in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/afl\/matches\/8028\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">preliminary final win over Collingwood<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; SCROLL DOWN FOR ALL THE VOTES AND THE LEADERBOARD<\/p>\n<p>They now have 13 votes overall for the finals series, five behind current lead Jai Newcombe, who failed to earn a vote in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/afl\/matches\/8027\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Hawthorn&#8217;s loss to the Cats<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With the Toyota AFL Grand Final worth 1.5 times loading, the race for the Gary Ayres Award remains wide open.<\/p>\n<p>Brisbane defender Harris Andrews is on 12 votes, while Cats ruck Mark Blicavs is on 11 after both players nabbed six votes in their respective games.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Dangerfield soared into contention after his 31 disposals and three goals.<\/p>\n<p>The Gary Ayres Award is presented in recognition of the player who has been adjudged the best through the finals series, as voted by the coaches.<\/p>\n<p>Geelong v Hawthorn<\/p>\n<p>10 Patrick Dangerfield (GEEL)<br \/>6 Mark Blicavs (GEEL)<br \/>6 Bailey Smith (GEEL)<br \/>4 Gryan Miers (GEEL)<br \/>2 Jeremy Cameron (GEEL)<br \/>1 Dylan Moore (HAW)<br \/>1 Tyson Stengle (GEEL)<\/p>\n<p>Collingwood v Brisbane<\/p>\n<p>9 Hugh McCluggage (BL)<br \/>6 Harris Andrews (BL)<br \/>5 Will Ashcroft (BL)<br \/>4 Zac Bailey (BL)<br \/>3 Jamie Elliott (COLL)<br \/>2 Ty Gallop (BL)<br \/>1 Darcy Gardiner (BL)<\/p>\n<p>LEADERBOARD<\/p>\n<p>18 Jai Newcombe (HAW)<br \/>13 Will Ashcroft (BL)<br \/>13 Hugh McCluggage (BL)<br \/>12 Harris Andrews (BL)<br \/>11 Mark Blicavs (GEEL)<br \/>10 Patrick Dangerfield (GEEL)<br \/>10 Darcy Moore (COLL)<br \/>10 Caleb Serong (FRE)<br \/>9 Oliver Dempsey (GEEL)<br \/>8 Finn Callaghan (GWS)<br \/>8 Josh Dunkley (BL)<br \/>8 Jack Gunston (HAW)<br \/>7 Jordan De Goey (COLL)<br \/>7 Blake Hardwick (HAW)<br \/>7 Tom Stewart (GEEL)<br \/>6 Matt Rowell (GCFC)<br \/>6 Bailey Smith (GEEL)<br \/>5 Nick Daicos (COLL)<br \/>5 Tom Green (GWS)<br \/>4 Tom Atkins (GEEL)<br \/>4 Zac Bailey (BL)<br \/>4 Jarrod Berry (BL)<br \/>4 Sam Collins (GCFC)<br \/>4 Jamie Elliott (COLL)<br \/>4 Max Holmes (GEEL)<br \/>4 Gryan Miers (GEEL)<br \/>4 Wil Powell (GCFC)<br \/>4 Isaac Quaynor (COLL)<br \/>4 Josh Ward (HAW)<br \/>3 Noah Anderson (GCFC)<br \/>3 Lloyd Meek (HAW)<br \/>3 Steele Sidebottom (COLL)<br \/>3 Josh Worrell (ADEL)<br \/>2 Andrew Brayshaw (FRE)<br \/>2 Jeremy Cameron (GEEL)<br \/>2 Ty Gallop (BL)<br \/>2 Jarman Impey (HAW)<br \/>1 Josh Battle (HAW)<br \/>1 Darcy Gardiner (BL)<br \/>1 Dylan Moore (HAW)<br \/>1 Cameron Rayner (BL)<br \/>1 Tyson Stengle (GEEL)<br \/>1 Bodhi Uwland (GCFC)<br \/>1 Nick Watson (HAW)<\/p>\n<p>Previous winners<\/p>\n<p>2016 Josh Kennedy (Sydney)<br \/>2017 Dustin Martin (Richmond)<br \/>2018 Steele Sidebottom (Collingwood)<br \/>2019 Dustin Martin (Richmond)<br \/>2020 Dustin Martin (Richmond)<br \/>2021 Jack Macrae (Western Bulldogs)<br \/>2022 Patrick Dangerfield (Geelong)<br \/>2023 Sam Walsh (Carlton)<br \/>2024 Lachie Neale (Brisbane)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who impressed the coaches in week three of finals? Will Ashcroft celebrates a goal during the Preliminary Final&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,83,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-160524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-text","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}