She’s been one of the standout players in the competition for years, and now she has a medal to show for it – Tahlia Matthews-Vincent is a Fay Morgan Medal winner. The Milawa defensive utility took out the A grade’s top honour after a terrific push through the back half of the year to win the count with 30 votes, seven clear of two-time Morgan medallist Tegan White. Matthews-Vincent’s Milawa teammate Micaela Larkings finished third with 21 votes, while Rising Star from Bonnie Doon, Annaliese Byrnes (20 votes) and Goorambat’s Olivia Ryan (18 votes) rounded out the top five. Early indications weren’t great for Matthews-Vincent, not even on the leaderboard after the first five rounds, but she had moved into fourth place by round 10. A series of polling matches saw her shoot to the front of the pack with five matches to play, and four consecutive three-vote games was enough to secure the top prize. Matthews-Vincent said it was an unexpected honour, and gave thanks to her teammates. “Honestly, a lot of the games I got three votes for, I wasn’t sure I was going to get votes at all,” she said. “It was surprising, but very heartwarming. “It was a rough start, but easing into it, I couldn’t have done it without the support of my team. “They’ve been behind me, we’ve been playing for each other, it’s been amazing.” Matthews-Vincent has been on the Fay Morgan radar for a few years now, with multiple Team of the Year awards and a fourth placing in last year’s count. Looking ahead to finals, Matthews-Vincent and the Demons will be tough to beat, but she said it was legitimately anyone’s year. “It’s going to be a tight finals, as we saw last year,” she said. “We finished first or second last year but we didn’t even make it to the grand final. “This year, anything can happen in finals, but we’ve just got to stick together and play as a team, and we should be okay.”
