The Hawks' 2020 best and fairest vote count saw a stunning finish, with Jack Gunston taking home his maiden Peter Crimmins Medal, six votes ahead of runner-up Tom Mitchell. 

Read: Gunston takes home Peter Crimmins Medal

While Mitchell had pulled ahead of the pack by 11 votes after 14 rounds, an impressive last month that included 11 goals from the number 19 saw Gunston round out a stellar season, polling 102 votes for the win. 

A strong start to the season saw Chad Wingard leading in the early stages, polling 11+ votes in three of the first four rounds. By season’s end, he’d collect 73 votes – enough to find himself in the final position of the podium. 

After Round 8 James Sicily was setting the pace, but he was ruled out of contention in Round 12, with his 2020 campaign cruelled by a season-ending knee injury. 

Gunston’s Round 18 performance earned him the most coaches’ votes of any player this year; his selfless four-goal, 11-mark performance collected 15 votes – just one vote shy of a perfect score.

Isaac Smith and Ben McEvoy were tied with the next best individual games of the season, receiving 13 votes for their Round 3 and Round 14 performances respectively.

Performances that garnered 12 votes included Wingard in Rounds 4 and 16, Gunston in Rounds 9 and 17, Sicily in Round 6 and Jaeger O’Meara in Round 3.

Other notable games include Dylan Moore in Round 18 (11 votes) and Will Day on debut in Round 6 (eight votes).

It was both Gunston and Wingard’s first appearance in the Hawthorn best and fairest top three, while Mitchell backed up his 2017-2018 wins admirably after missing all of the 2019 season.

See the full breakdown of votes below: