Three Crows have been included in the 2016 AFL Coaches Association team of the year.
The Club had a player selected in each line of the team, with Rory Laird named in defence, Rory Sloane in the midfield and Eddie Betts in a forward pocket.
The highest vote-getters in the AFLCA Champion Player of the Year Award were selected in each position of a modern-day AFL team, as determined by a group of the Association’s Opposition Analysts.
Sloane, who finished second overall in the award with 93 votes, was named alongside Geelong skipper Joel Selwood, Richmond match winner Dustin Martin and dominant Melbourne ruckman Max Gawn in the starting midfield. Sydney Swan Luke Parker, who has also been chosen as a midfielder, fills a spot on the interchange bench.
Sloane, Martin, Selwood and Parker all placed in the top six in the AFLCA Player of the Year Award.
Adelaide’s second-highest vote-getter, Betts features in a star-studded attack which also includes Coleman Medallist Josh Kennedy, rising Gold Coast star Tom Lynch, dangerous Port Adelaide half-forward Robbie Gray, St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt and Swans onballer Dan Hannebery, who has been selected as a ‘high half-forward’.
Laird, who polled 47 votes from the coaches in 17 games this season, has been recognised as the premier small defender in the League.
The influential Crow joins key-defenders Alex Rance of Richmond and North Melbourne’s Robbie Tarrant, Hawthorn’s Josh Gibson, Geelong 300-gamer Corey Enright and GWS co-captain Callan Ward in the backline.
Eighteen members of the AFLCA team of the year, including Sloane, Betts and Laird, were short-listed in the AFL’s All Australian squad of 40.
The exceptions are Gibson, Gray, Riewoldt and Kangaroos ruckman Todd Goldstein, who occupies a spot on the bench as the second-highest polling ruckman this season.
As the highest scoring club Captain in the team, the Cats’ Selwood is Captain of the AFLCA team.
The AFLCA team of the year is designed to reinforce the unique perspective AFL Coaches have on the game. It achieves that by first establishing the modern day structure of the team and then populating it with the best specialist players for that structure, as determined by the industry’s experts: professional AFL coaches.
