Marcus Bontempelli has been crowned the Western Bulldogs best and fairest player taking out the 2016 Charles Sutton Medal in the club’s premiership year.
The medal just reward for a stellar season by the 20-year-old midfielder, who was also the Bulldogs’ top-ranked vote-getter in the Brownlow count and named as an All Australian in his third year in the AFL.
Bontempelli is the youngest Charles Sutton Medal winner since David Thorpe in 1968 and joins all time Bulldogs’ great Ted Whitten as the only other Bulldog to win the medal in a premiership season.
Whitten, claimed the medal the year Footscray won the flag, 1954, and it was his first of five.
Bontempelli finished 71 votes ahead of Dale Morris, who was two votes clear of Lachie Hunter.
Bontempelli played all 24 games in 2016, averaging 24 disposals and four tackles.
Liam Picken was awarded the club’s best player throughout the finals series in which he averaged 23 possessions.