We've reached the midway point of the 2023 AFL season, which means it's time to dish out awards for the best-performing players to date.
The opening half of the year has offered plenty of thrills and spills, with each club forging an identity as we begin to work through the final stretch of this season's premiership race.
Individuals have stuck their necks out in contention for particular awards, and here we detail who may be leading the honours as we turn to the second half of the season.
Without further ado, we name our Brownlow Medal winner, Rising Star winner, Most Improved Player, Recruit of the Year, Offensive Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and Coach of the Year from the first half of the 2023 season.
Defensive Player of the Year
Darcy Moore, put simply, has been an absolute nightmare for opposing forward lines. Whether it's intercepting forward-50 entries or coordinating his defensive brigade, Moore has performed at a near-perfect level throughout the first half of the season.
Moore boasts a defensive one-on-one loss percentage of just 12.9, a phenomenal feat that ranks behind only Jacob Weitering's 11.4% among key defenders who have played all possible games this season. The Magpies skipper averages 3.8 intercept marks per game, ranking equal-second among key-position backmen behind only Gold Coast's Charlie Ballard (4.5), while his spoils per game (7.8) rate as the fifth-best, with Weitering's 6.3 per game narrowly trailing.
Defender
Disposals
Marks
Rebound50s
Carlton's Weitering, meanwhile, has done an admirable job at preserving the Blues' solid defence, however, the ‘team success' factor works against him in this conversation. The same goes for Hawthorn captain James Sicily, whose disposal use is arguably the most revered in the competition among key position players.
