For the third straight season, the brilliant Eddie Betts has won Adelaide’s leading goalkicker award.
Betts, 29, has topped the Club’s goalkicking in every year since becoming a Crow at the end of 2013.
The fan favourite kicked 75 goals this season, eclipsing his previous best of 63 goals in 2015. He kicked 66 of those goals in the home and away season to finish equal-third in the Coleman Medal.
Betts was recognised with All Australian selection for the second-consecutive season, and finished equal-fourth in the peer-voted AFL Players’ Association MVP award.
The lively forward was only held goalless twice. He kicked two bags of six; in Adelaide’s Round 21 win over Fremantle, and against North Melbourne in the Elimination Final. Betts also boasted the best scoring accuracy of any player to kick 50 or more goals this season.
Adelaide’s greatest-ever goalkicker, Tony Modra, is the only Crow to kick more goals in a single season than Betts. Modra finished with 129 goals in 1993 and won the Coleman Medal with 84 goals in 1997. He equalled Betts’ effort of 75 in the 1996 season.
One of the game’s great entertainers, Betts was nominated for Goal of the Year four times in 2016.
He received two nominations in the same game against Greater Western Sydney in Round 10 including an incredible escape act and snap from the boundary line – one of three finalists for Goal of the Year. Betts won the award last year, coincidentally, from a similar spot at Adelaide Oval also in Indigenous Round. The 2016 winner will be announced on Brownlow Medal night.
Betts, who hasn’t missed a game since joining Adelaide, has now kicked 189 goals in 69 matches for the Crows – ranked ninth all-time at the Club. He celebrated his 250th AFL game with a match-defining five-goal haul in the Round 22 Showdown win.
Key forward Josh Jenkins finished runner-up in Adelaide’s goalkicking.
Jenkins, who also achieved a career-high, kicked 62 goals and finished fifth in the Coleman Medal with 60 goals at the end of the minor round. He slotted a personal best eight in a losing team against the Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium. The former basketballer, who has now played 93 games, has improved with every season. He kicked 40 goals in a breakout 2014 season, followed by 46 last year.
Captain Taylor Walker finished just outside the League’s top 10 goalkickers with 42 goals in the home and away season. He booted another five in finals to improve his season tally to 47. The two-time Crows leading goalkicker also ranked No.1 in the AFL for goal assists (25) after Round 23.
All Australian nominee Tom Lynch, who led Adelaide’s goalkicking with 33 in 2013, bettered that effort by kicking 42 goals in 2016. Promising forward Mitch McGovern rounded out the Club’s top-five scorers with 32 goals in his debut AFL season.
Top five goalkickers 2016
75 – Eddie Betts
62 – Josh Jenkins
47 – Taylor Walker
42 – Tom Lynch
32 – Mitch McGovern
See the complete list of Club leading goalkickers and other award winners
