{"id":222933,"date":"2026-09-15T13:54:32","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T03:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/?p=222933"},"modified":"2026-09-15T13:54:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T03:54:34","slug":"henry-smashes-dhara-kerr-medal-record-to-cap-off-phenomenal-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2026\/09\/15\/henry-smashes-dhara-kerr-medal-record-to-cap-off-phenomenal-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry smashes Dhara Kerr Medal record to cap off phenomenal year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>WHILE the result itself was the least surprising of the night, Swan Districts star <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"86979\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/afl\/player\/jaime-henry\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jaime Henry<\/a> lived up to pre-event favouritism by running out the Dhara Kerr Medal winner by five votes with a record tally. The ball-winning midfielder polled 35 on the night &#8211; including 11 best on ground performances &#8211; to smash runner-up <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"99522\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/afl\/player\/jayme-harken\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jayme Harken<\/a>&#8216;s 27-vote winning effort in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Henry fell short of premiership glory this season, but won just about everything there was to win individually, pairing her Dhara Kerr Medal with the Lou Knitter Medal in the losing WAFLW Grand Final side. Hentry always looked in control, polling a perfect 15 votes from her first five rounds to streak to a six-vote lead over Subiaco&#8217;s <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"30919\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/afl\/player\/paige-sheppard\/\" target=\"_blank\">Paige Sheppard<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Harken challenged Henry towards the end of the count closing to within four votes, the Swan Districts midfielder steadied to secure the top gong by five votes. For Harken, it was a remarkable effort to fall just short of a third league best and fairest in four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Swan Districts also took home the Joanne Huggins Award with the returning <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"29826\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/afl\/player\/ashley-sharp\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ashley Sharp<\/a> booting 36 goals after a three-year absence, nine clear of Claremont&#8217;s <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"136874\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/afl\/player\/bec-anderson\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bec Anderson<\/a>. The tally included 11 multiple-goal hauls, and the 29-year-old was held goalless only twice to become the third consecutive Swan Districts player to win the award after <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"100235\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/afl\/player\/courtney-zappara\/\" target=\"_blank\">Courtney Zappara<\/a> and <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"99684\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/afl\/player\/taylah-edwards\/\" target=\"_blank\">Taylah Edwards<\/a> in 2024 and 2025 respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>East Fremantle bottom-ager <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"186763\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/afl\/player\/olivia-mccay\/\" target=\"_blank\">Olivia McCay<\/a> won the Cath Boyce Rising Star Award for the best player aged 21 and under, while<strong><em> Jason Burton<\/em><\/strong> won the WAFLW Coach of the Year for steering Swan Districts to the minor premiership and eventual grand final. Subiaco pair <strong>Dhi Perera<\/strong> and <strong>Ava Cooper <\/strong>won the Rogers Cup Best and Fairest and Leading Goalkicker Awards respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WAFLW AWARDS:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dhara Kerr Medal:<\/strong> Jaime Henry (Swan Districts)\u00a0<br><strong>Joanne Huggins Leading Goalkicker:<\/strong> Ashley Sharp (Swan Districts)\u00a0<br><strong>Cath Boyce Rising Star Award: <\/strong>Olivia McCay (East Fremantle)\u00a0<br><strong>WAFLW Coach of the Year:<\/strong> Jason Burton (Swan Districts)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>HART Sport Rogers Cup Awards:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Best and Fairest:<\/strong> Dhi Perera (Subiaco)\u00a0<br><strong>Leading goal-kicker:<\/strong> Ava Cooper (Subiaco)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dhara Kerr Medal Leaderboard:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jaime Henry (Swan Districts) &#8211; 35 votes<br>Jayme Harken (Claremont)\u00a0&#8211; 30 votes<br>Paige Sheppard (Subiaco)\u00a0&#8211; 26 votes<br>Isabella Shannon (Perth)\u00a0 &#8211; 24 votes<br>Lisa Steane (Subiaco)\u00a0&#8211; 17 votes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-dc-block-dc-mention _dc_mention\"><div class=\"section-heading_wrap\"><span class=\"section-heading is-small\">Mentions<\/span><span class=\"hor-border\"><\/span><\/div><ul class=\"js-overflow-list overflow-list\"><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/jaime-henry\/\">Jaime Henry<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/jayme-harken\/\">Jayme Harken<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/paige-sheppard\/\">Paige Sheppard<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/ashley-sharp\/\">Ashley Sharp<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/bec-anderson\/\">Bec Anderson<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/courtney-zappara\/\">Courtney Zappara<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/taylah-edwards\/\">Taylah Edwards<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/olivia-mccay\/\">Olivia McCay<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"js-dropdown dropdown overflowed\"><button class=\"btn btn-icon-only\"><span class=\"icon btn-icon\">\n                    <!-- icon - plus circle - 20px-->\n                    <svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 20 20\">\n                        <path d=\"M15,9.28h-4.3V5h0A.72.72,0,1,0,9.28,5h0V9.28H5a.72.72,0,0,0,0,1.43H9.28V15a.72.72,0,0,0,1.43,0h0V10.71H15a.72.72,0,0,0,0-1.43Z\"\/>\n                        <path d=\"M10,0A10,10,0,1,0,20,10,10,10,0,0,0,10,0Zm0,18.57A8.57,8.57,0,0,1,10,1.43h0a8.57,8.57,0,0,1,0,17.14Z\"\/>\n                    <\/svg>\n                <\/span><\/button><div class=\"popover\"><div class=\"popover-content\"><ul class=\"popover-menu\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WHILE the result itself was the least surprising of the night, Swan Districts star Jaime Henry lived up to pre-event favouritism by running out the Dhara Kerr Medal winner by five votes with a record tally. The ball-winning midfielder polled 35 on the night &#8211; including 11 best on ground performances &#8211; to smash runner-up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":222934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21782,8,15,22121,18084,3131,137],"tags":[3183,20957,19081,15804,6186,22838,3452,15862],"class_list":["post-222933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards-wrap","category-news","category-state-leagues","category-swan-districts-womens","category-waflw","category-western-australia","category-womens","tag-ashley-sharp","tag-bec-anderson","tag-courtney-zappara","tag-jaime-henry","tag-jayme-harken","tag-olivia-mccay","tag-paige-sheppard","tag-taylah-edwards"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222933"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222937,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222933\/revisions\/222937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}