\n Ash Riddell wins the AFLW’s Best and Fairest award for 2025\n <\/p>\n
Ash Riddell poses for a photo after winning the AFLW Best and Fairest on November 24, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
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
ALL-AUSTRALIAN TEAM Roo equals record, fresh faces make up bulk of side<\/a> 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 (17) 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 Telstra AFLW 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 Brisbane.<\/p>\n The 29-year-old ball-magnet has enjoyed an outstanding 2025 season, in which she was also named the Sharp EIT Solutions AFLCA AFLW 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 “I’m very lucky and a little bit anxious to be up here,” Riddell said as she accepted her prize at the awards ceremony on Monday night.<\/p>\n “I’m surrounded by so many good players. I’m really humbled to be up here.”<\/p>\n Ash Riddell looks on after winning the AFLW Best and Fairest on November 24, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n Remarkably, Riddell was overlooked in two drafts before being picked up by North Melbourne for its first season as an AFLW expansion club in 2019.<\/p>\n She has since gone on to become a club champion, premiership player and now a League best-and-fairest winner.<\/p>\n
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