Claremont draft prospect Heath Mellody has become the first West Aussie to win the Larke Medal in seven years after a consistent and eye-catching AFL National Under-18s Championships campaign.<\/p>\n
The talented half-back\/midfielder strengthened his first-round draft credentials by being voted as the best player across the carnival by the panel of judges.<\/p>\n
Mellody polled 19 votes, six clear of WA co-captain and Swan Districts young gun Leo Steed who finished on 13.<\/p>\n
The last player from Western Australia to win the Larke Medal was Perth product and current West Coast midfielder Deven Robertson in 2019.<\/p>\n
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It was also a one-two WA double that year with Robertson edging out East Fremantle export turned star Dockers big man Luke Jackson.<\/p>\n
Mellody, the WA State 18s MVP winner who\u00a0averaged 28 disposals, five marks and four rebound 50s across the four games, was named skipper of the Under-18s All-Australian team in another massive accolade.<\/p>\n
He was one of four Black Swans players to make the All-Australian team alongside his Claremont colts premiership teammates George Gale, Benji van Rooyen and Swan Districts first-round prospect Steed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re proud of Heath\u2019s efforts across the Championships, he impressed in a variety of roles for us and remained consistent in all four games,\u201d AAMI WA Football State Talent Manager Adam Jones said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be named WA\u2019s first Larke Medal winner since 2019 is a credit to his hard work and dedication over a number of years to keep improving his game.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have four players named in the Under-18s All-Australian Team, including Heath as captain, is a massive result for WA Football and highlighted our improvement from last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fantastic to see Leo recognised as the runner-up of the Larke Medal as well, while our fellow co-captain George Gale and ruckman Benji van Rooyen were also deserving of their spots in the All-Australian Team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an amazing couple of weeks for our AAMI WA Football Talent Program after our State 16s Boys won their first national title in nine years.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have a West Aussie named as the best player of the 16s (Troy Warner) and 18s carnivals is a monumental achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n
WA finished the 18s carnival with a 2-2 record after falling agonisingly short of a final-game victory over the Allies in Ballarat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Claremont draft prospect Heath Mellody has become the first West Aussie to win the Larke Medal in seven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-816096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816096","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=816096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}