Sport

Benalla young gun Xavier Wapling ties for Pattison Medal

By Josh Huntly

Oct 4, 2026

Benalla's Xavier Wapling and Mooroopna's Jayden Thorne tied in the Pattison Medal vote count. Photo: GVL

The Goulburn Valley League anointed its top junior players in a first-of-its-kind vote count at MOVE at the weekend.

Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content

The league’s future stars were granted their own ceremony separate from the senior version that took place in September, with the GVL’s under-18 football and under-15 and under-17 netballers crowned.

The Pattison Medal count ended in a tie for the first time in eight years, and it was a Saint coming out on top for the first time in 24 years, with Benalla’s Xavier Wapling tying Mooroopna’s Jayden Thorne to share the under-18 best-and-fairest award.

And what a finish to the count it was.

Benalla’s thirds side won five of its final six matches of the home and away season en route to a preliminary final berth, and Wapling played a massive part in that surge, polling votes in three games between rounds rounds 14 and 17, two of which he was named best afield.

But entering the final game of the regular season in round 18 on 21 votes, Wapling needed everything to go his way, trailing Thorne by three and requiring not only another best on ground performance to tie the count, but also for Thorne to receive no votes.

The Saints won their round 18 match up against Shepparton Swans in dominant fashion, and a massive three-goal performance from Wapling through the middle was recognised by the umpires, too, with the young gun polling maximum votes to tie Thorne - who failed to poll in the final round - at the top, crowning himself as a Pattison Medallist with 24 votes.

A GVL interleague representative this season, the Saints star booted 20 goals for the season to be named in the best in 16 of his 19 games, becoming Benalla’s first league medal-winner in the age group since Ricky Joyce in 2002, and is poised to be a key piece of the Saints future, adding the Pattison Medal to back-to-back under-18 MVP’s won in 2024 and 2025.

Echuca’s Baxter Cowley (21 votes) and Shepparton’s Cody Montgomery (20) rounded out the under-18 podium, while Wapling’s fellow Benalla teammates Josh Hart and Michael Rigano also polled strongly, receiving 11 and 8 votes, respectively.

In the netball, Shepparton’s Frankie Ewart claimed the Carol Ryan Medal as under-17 best and fairest, while Shepparton United’s Georgia Robertson was a runaway winner in the under-15s Jacqui Hudgson Medal with 34 votes.