PATRICK Dangerfield will leave the Adelaide Football Club as its 2015 best and fairest, having claimed his first Malcolm Blight Medal on Saturday night.
The 25-year-old enjoyed a stunning season – his best yet – ranked third in the League for average contested possessions and fourth for inside 50s.
He is third favourite to take out Monday night's Brownlow Medal.
Rory Laird's enormous development this year saw him finish runner-up, 22 votes behind Dangerfield.
Small forward Eddie Betts finished third, ruckman Sam Jacobs fourth and Rory Sloane rounded out the top five.
It was a breakthrough victory for Dangerfield, who had finished runner-up in 2012 and third in 2013 and 2014.
He informed the club of his desire to be traded home to Geelong just before Adelaide's finals campaign and although the club has vowed to play hardball, it's expected he'll play for the Cats next year.
Betts led the best and fairest count early, reflecting his incredible start to the season; he booted 26 goals in Adelaide's opening seven matches.
But Dangerfield took the lead after round 10 and was never headed.
Such was the midfielder's consistency in 2015 that he never polled the maximum 25 votes in a game.
Only three players achieved the feat: Taylor Walker polled 25 in round one for his six-goal, 22-possession game against North Melbourne, while Betts also polled maximum votes against St Kilda in round seven (six goals) and again in the elimination final against the Western Bulldogs (five goals). Brodie Smith also polled maximum votes in round two.
Betts was the club's highest goal kicker for a second straight season with 63 majors, while Matt Crouch won the Mark Bickley Emerging Talent Award for the best player under 21.
Adelaide also announced it had renamed its best team man award in Phil Walsh's honour, which was won by retiring key forward James Podsiadly.
Rory Sloane was awarded the Chelsea Phillis Coaches Award, Jake Lever won the Brian Sando OAM Award for professionalism and Ian Callinan made it back-to-back SANFL best and fairest awards.
Skipper Walker made special mention of the club's player development manager Emma Barr, who has played an invaluable role in helping the playing group through the tragedy of losing their head coach in July.
2015 Malcolm Blight Medal
TOP 10
Patrick Dangerfield – 302
Rory Laird – 280
Eddie Betts – 278
Sam Jacobs – 242
Taylor Walker - 209
Rory Sloane - 205
Scott Thompson – 194
Daniel Talia - 183
Tom Lynch – 175
Charlie Cameron - 168
