Whorouly’s Jess Allen wasn’t expecting to poll as high as she did in Sunday’s Fay Morgan Medal count – not only did she poll exceptionally well, but she claimed the league’s top netball honour in a landslide.

The versatile player took out the A grade best and fairest gong with 32 votes, with the next nearest competitor polling 25 votes in Milawa’s Tahlia Matthews-Vincent.

Allen had a two-vote lead on Greta’s Amanda Cleeland after round five, and was still three votes ahead of Goorambat’s Eliza Cole after round 10.

The middle of the year was where the difference was made, with Allen polling the maximum of three votes in five matches from rounds 12 to 16.

With a nine-vote lead after round 18, the medal was all but clinched, and despite only picking up one vote from the last three rounds, Allen was too far out in front to be caught.

Allen said she had no idea she would even be in contention.

“I was really relaxed because I was not expecting it at all,” she said.

“I was just sitting there chilling, and then as the leaderboards kept popping up I was getting more and more stressed, but I wasn’t expecting to win it at all.”

In her first year at Whorouly after playing much of her netball at Wagga Tigers, Allen said her ability to play literally any position on the court, and her family connections to the club, had helped her thrive.

“I guess I’m lucky my sisters have played there before and we all play pretty similarly, so I felt like I could just jump in,” she said.

“Because I knew a lot of the girls just from being back and watching my sisters anyway, I was really welcome, so it made the transition back really easy.

“Sometimes you just want to settle into a position, but I know my role within the team is to be versatile, so I just took that on board and ran with it from the start, I knew that’s what I was going to do, and that’s what’s helped my team get this far.”

Allen and the Lions are short odds favourites to go all the way to flag glory this year, after sailing through the home and away season undefeated.

“There’s a lot of pressure being undefeated, but we’re not seeing it that way,” she said.

“We know going into finals we’re pretty much back to square one, and to beat any one of those teams in the top five, we’re going to have to play our best for a full game.

“That’s the way we’re looking at it – it’s pretty much a new season heading into finals, we’re not worrying about what the rest of the season was.

“We know we’re going to have to play well, but we know we can play well.”