From Swans to Swans to Sandover – Sam Fisher takes out WA’s top football honour

Sam Fisher has taken out the Sandover Medal in just his first season of WAFL football, polling a total of 13 votes in the shortened 2020 fixture.

Originating from Canberra, the 22-year old’s career has already seen him:

• Play for Canberra Demons in the NEAFL,
• Be part of the GWS Giants Academy since the age of 13,
• Represent the Allies in the under 18s Championships,
• Spend time on the Sydney Swans list (taken as a Category B Rookie),
• Play in the VFL with the Northern Blues,
• Spend part of the 2019 preseason training at Carlton,
• Named in the 2019 VFL Team of the Year on the half-forward flank, and now
• Named as the 2020 WAFL Sandover Medallist.

He finished the count two votes ahead of expected favourites, Aaron Black (West Perth) with 11 votes and Jackson Ramsay (East Perth) on 10 votes.

At the conclusion of the Round 6 votes, Fisher had received the same number of votes as Aaron Black, with both sitting behind the first placed Chris Masten by a single point.

It was at this moment that Fisher thought he might actually be in with a chance to take it out.

“When I had seen the leader board at that break, I started to get pretty nervous” he said. “We had a good end of the season winning a few games, and in the game we lost I had a good individual performance.”

Fisher ended up polling votes in six of the possible eight games, securing the win in the final round of the season.

2020 SANDOVER MEDAL LEADERBOARD                             

13 – Samuel Fisher (Swan Districts)

11 – Aaron Black (West Perth)

10 – Jackson Ramsay (East Perth)

9 – Jake Florenca (South Fremantle)

9 – Chris Masten (Perth)

8 – Kade Stewart (South Fremantle)

8 – Jye Bolton (Claremont)

7 – Tyler Keitel (West Perth)

7 – Alec Waterman (Claremont)

Fisher becomes just the 10^th Swan to win the coveted award, joining club legends like Bill Walker and Haydn Bunton Jr, and is grateful to have his name associated with theirs.

“They are great names and you learn a lot about them and the history of the club at Swan Districts” he said.

“It’s a special place and we have fans and support staff that turn up week in week out, no matter how the club is going.

“It helps show the specialty of this award to the club with how much history they have had over the last century.

“To have my name up with those guys is a special honour.”

Jesse Turner (6 votes), Corey Gault (4 votes) and Frank Anderson (3 votes) were other Swan Districts players to poll on the night.

Phil Smart, the General Manager of Football Operations at Swan Districts said it was their goal at the end of last year to target high level talent who were doing everything they could to be in the AFL system, and Sam had proved he was worthy of taking his career to the next step.

“In our strategic plan at the club, we had a plan to recruit what we called A-grade players” Smart said.

“Part of the selling of our club to Sam was the number of mature age players that we’ve had drafted from Swan Districts. We have had a good 12 players over the last number of years that have been drafted from our league team.                                                                                     

“So rather than getting 28-year old’s that were coming off AFL lists, we went for 22-year old’s that were striving to get back into the AFL.

“Sam’s got all the attributes to go to AFL level. He has good skills and is a good decision maker. He’d be well suited back in AFL footy.”

SWAN DISTRICTS SANDOVER MEDAL WINNERS

2020 Sam Fisher

2010 Andrew Krakouer

2003 Shane Beros

1996 Jeremy Wasley

1990 Mick Grasso

1982 Phil Narkle

1970 Bill Walker

1965-67 Bill Walker

1962 Haydn Bunton Jr

1944 Jim Davies

1935 George Krepp