Henry’s remarkable season recognised with McSherry Medal

Jaime Henry’s remarkable 2026 WAFL Women’s season saw her celebrated with a massive couple of nights where she made it back-to-back McSherry Medals at Swan Districts on Friday before being named the league’s best with the Dhara Kerr Medal on Monday.

It’s hard to imagine there has been a better individual season by any player in the WAFL Women’s competition than what Henry produced and she got her just rewards over four nights by being named the best player at her club and in the WAFLW.

It wasn’t quite the perfect season with Swan Districts losing another heartbreaking Grand Final to East Fremantle, but Henry couldn’t do more even in that game where she was judged best afield and won the Lou Knitter Medal.

Then a couple of weeks after Grand Final day where both Swan Districts’ WAFLW and Rogers Cup teams were in action with the former losing by four points and the latter prevailing by a solitary point both against East Fremantle, the season was celebrated on Friday night.

The main event of the evening was the awarding of the McSherry Medal named in honour of Mandy McSherry who is the foundation captain at Swan Districts, is a dual Reserves premiership winning coach and a former player and captain for Western Australia.

Henry was already the reigning McSherry Medal winner but she took her game to a whole new level in 2026 to be the standout player in the entire competition and the only shock is that she still hasn’t earned an AFLW opportunity.

Across the 18 matches in 2026, she averaged a remarkable 33 possessions a game to go with 9.1 tackles with her consistency remarkable.

She didn’t have a game of less than 19 possessions all season while she had over 30 on 12 occasions, 40 or more another three times and then set a new WAFLW record with 51 against South Fremantle in Round 12.

As a result, it was no surprise to see Henry the runaway leader in McSherry Medal voting finishing on 193 by the end of the season to make it back-to-back fairest and best awards with Swan Districts.

Not only that, but Henry stepped up on the bigger stages too including having 34 possessions and 12 tackles in the thumping State game win for Western Australia against South Australia to go with her 31 disposals and 13 tackles in the Grand Final.

It was far from just a one woman show in the 2026 season at Swan Districts, though, with a team that finished the home and away season in top spot, qualified straight for the Grand Final and then went over so close to securing that elusive premiership.

Runner-up in fairest and best voting was Jemma Sly who ended up on 80 votes having played all 18 games and being tremendously consistent averaging 16.4 possessions a game.

Former captain Jess Cox returned to Swan Districts in 2026 and picked right back up where she left off to finish third in fairest and best voting with 74 votes having averaged 18.8 possessions.

The McSherry Medal voting was then rounded out by Tamzyn Beros (70 votes), Chloe Reilly (68), Naomi Baker (55), Bella Edgley (39), Luka Davis (33) and Summer Yarran (32).

Ash Sharp was naturally the Joanne Huggins Medal winner as the leading goalkicker given she also kicked more goals than anyone else in the competition this season ending up with 38 goals.

Makaela Grau was also named the Rising Star winner on the back of playing nine matches having started the season in the Rogers Cup and averaging 10 possessions in those appearances at League level.

Then for the premiership winning Rogers Cup team for Swan Districts, it was Frankie Best who won the Chelsea Randall Medal as the fairest and best.

She finished the season with 91 votes to win ahead of Khalia Fawcett (73), Charli Grau (56), Karri Parnham (45), Keira Fawcett (44), Shanae Morisey (44), Jaya Abbott (43), Eloise Moore (41), Rhenae Beagley (38) and Ella Sandrini (38).

The other major award presented on the night was the WAFLW Person of the Year and that went to Max Chipper who continued to be the head of female football with Swan Districts and continuing his own playing career with the black-and-whites.

WAFLW AWARD WINNERS 2026

McSherry Medal (Fairest and Best): Jaime Henry
Runner-up: Jemma Sly
Third place: Jess Cox
Rising Star: Makaela Grau
WAFLW Encouragement Award: Kayla Gordon
Joanne Huggins Leading Goalkicker: Ashley Sharp (36 goals)
Chelsea Randall Medal (Rogers Cup Fairest and Best): Frankie Best
Runner-up Rogers Cup: Khalia Fawcett
Third place Rogers Cup: Charli Grau
Rogers Cup Encouragement Award: Brianna North
Leading Goalkicker Rogers Cup: Lara Sherborne (32 goals)
WAFLW Person of the Year: Max Chipper

Find all the photos from the evening here.