{"id":305787,"date":"2025-11-24T15:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/305787\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T15:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:11:15","slug":"kangaroos-star-ash-riddell-wins-aflw-best-and-fairest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/305787\/","title":{"rendered":"Kangaroos star Ash Riddell wins AFLW best and fairest"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Melbourne midfield machine Ash Riddell has underlined her status as one of AFLW’s brightest stars in securing the league’s best-and-fairest award for the first time.<\/p>\n

The runner-up to Adelaide’s Ebony Marinoff last year, Riddell polled 23 votes to add the league’s highest individual honour to her fifth All-Australian selection.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

Geelong’s Georgie Prespakis (20 votes) was second and Melbourne’s Tyla Hanks (18) third in best-and-fairest polling, with West Coast’s Ella Roberts (fourth).<\/p>\n

North Melbourne star Jasmine Garner and Sydney’s Laura Gardiner (15) were tied for fifth.<\/p>\n

Sydney’s explosive young gun Zippy Fish won the Rising Star award with a maximum 50 votes, ahead of Carlton’s Poppy Scholz (23) and West Coast’s Lucia Painter (23).<\/p>\n

Riddell is the first North Melbourne player to win the best-and-fairest award in the league’s 10 seasons and will lead the Kangaroos in Saturday’s grand final against the Brisbane Lions.<\/p>\n

Ash Riddell is the 2025 AFLW Best and Fairest winner.\u00a0Photo by James Wiltshire\/AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old ball-magnet has enjoyed an outstanding 2025 season, in which she was also named the AFL Coaches Association’s champion player of the year.<\/p>\n

Riddell has broken her own AFLW record for most disposals in a game three times this season and amassed 40 or more possessions on five occasions, averaging a league-best 35.3 disposals per match.<\/p>\n

Minor premiers North were the best-represented club in the All-Australian team, with Riddell selected alongside teammates Garner, Tahlia Randall and Blaithin Bogue.<\/p>\n

Garner was named All-Australian captain for the third time in the last four seasons and equalled teammate Emma Kearney’s record with her eighth blazer.<\/p>\n

Bogue was one of a record four Irish players named in the All-Australian team along with Jennifer Dunne (Brisbane), Niamh McLaughlin (Gold Coast) and Aine McDonagh (Hawthorn).<\/p>\n

Dunne and pocket rocket Courtney Hodder were the only two All-Australian representatives for the Lions, who will attempt to end North Melbourne’s 26-game winning streak in the grand final.<\/p>\n

Richmond’s Sarah Hosking won mark of the year for her courageous, back-with-the-flight effort against Collingwood.<\/p>\n

Sydney’s Montana Ham won goal of the year for her run and finish against the Magpies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North Melbourne midfield machine Ash Riddell has underlined her status as one of AFLW’s brightest stars in securing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-305787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305787","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=305787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}