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Melbourne’s Jesse Hogan has won the 2015 Rising Star award over Carlton’s Patrick Cripps, winning with 49 votes to Cripps’ 41.
Hogan has been a revelation in his debut season for Melbourne, playing 20 games and kicking 44 goals, the most by a player in his debut season since Chris Grant kicked 51 goals in his first year in 1990.
He ranked third in the AFL for contested marks and eighth for marks inside 50, both enormous achievements for a 20-year-old key forward. In 20 games he was held goalless only once.
Hogan was originally signed to Melbourne at the end of the 2012 season but wasn’t eligible to play AFL until 2014.
Unfortunately, his entire 2014 season was wiped out by a persistent back injury that had Demons fans fearing their prized recruit could be a bust.
For a club that has copped plenty of bad luck over the past decade or so, Hogan’s amazing 2015 season has been a tonic. He could rightly be called the most exciting young player in the league.
He is the second Melbourne player to win the award after Jared Rivers won it in 2004.
It was always going to be a matter of Hogan and fellow Western Australian Patrick Cripps as the top two in the award with the only question being where they would respectively finish.
Cripps, who was drafted to Carlton at pick 13 in the 2013 AFL Draft, had his 2014 debut season interrupted by a broken leg and was still eligible for the award in 2015.
Against St Kilda in just his sixth AFL game he had 33 disposals and laid 11 tackles, providing a best on ground performance in Carlton’s first win of the season.
The massive games kept coming for Cripps – 31 disposals against Port Adelaide, 35 against Collingwood, 30 against GWS – and he will be a genuine contender to take out Carlton’s best and fairest this year.
However, he ultimately fell short of the Rising Star honour, just eight votes behind Hogan in what was predicted to be one of the tightest counts in history.
West Coat’s Dom Sheed came third after an impressive season with 27 votes, followed by Sydney’s Isaac Heeney with 12 votes and Melbourne’s Angus Brayshaw in fifth with eight votes.
Touk Miller, Adam Saad, Jake Lever, Jordan de Goey and Jackson Thurlow were the other players to be awarded votes from the class of 23 Rising Star nominees eligible.
Full Rising Star votes
Jesse Hogan 49
Patrick Cripps 41
Dom Sheed 27
Isaac Heeney 12
Angus Brayshaw 8
Touk Miller 6
Adam Saad 3
Jake Lever 2
Jordan De Goey 1
Jackson Thurlow 1