MAX Gawn continued his outstanding season in round 12.

Aside from a couple of quieter matches in rounds eight and nine, Gawn has otherwise played at an incredibly high level this season. His form from rounds three to seven and rounds 10 to 12, in particular, have been elite.

On Queen’s Birthday, in front of 60,158, Gawn notched up a career-best 27 disposals, kicked three goals and had 31 hit outs.

He rose to the occasion once again.

Tim Watson, Brian Taylor and Danny Frawley each gave him three votes to win the Neale Daniher Trophy, from teammates Bernie Vince (six votes) and Nathan Jones (three).

For Gawn, who played just his 51^st game against the Pies, he reinforced his position as one of the competition’s best ruckmen, even if he thought Vince was unlucky not to claim best-on-ground honours.

“I was very lucky. I just saw Bernie Vince had 42 [disposals], so it must’ve been that last goal that got me over the line. It was good to put on our brand of footy for 60,000 Melbourne fans, which was great,” he told Melbourne TV.  

“We had 23 players playing. We all had Neale Daniher in the back of our head and the speech he gave us on Thursday was inspirational.

“It was great to see him after the game and I loved winning the Neale Daniher Trophy, so we had 23 players and it definitely helped.”

Gawn’s influence is not just limited to on field; it’s very much off it as well. 

Although he officially became part of the leadership group this year, he has always had the capabilities of becoming an official leader. Now that he is playing with confidence – his body and therefore form has allowed him to do this – he is flourishing.

His presence and aura around the club has now transpired into matches and for the rest of the competition to see. And while he might be one of the best characters in the game today, which is a compliment and not a criticism, don’t be fooled by his dry wit and quirky humour as not taking his game seriously. You don’t overcome a host of injuries, including some serious knee injuries, if you’re not fair dinkum.  

Gawn is a natural leader and it’s showing in all areas of his game. You only have to watch him among the players, supporters and youngsters at clinics to see the impact he has.

Given much of his form has been at an elite level this year, not only for a ruckmen – but players in the game – coach Paul Roos hinted that Gawn was right on the edge of being elite, if he wasn’t there already.  

“That's an elite game for a ruckman, whether that puts him in the category? It certainly does for this weekend. It's a pretty good game, 27 and three goals. He's been relatively consistent. There have been a few games that he's been disappointed in himself, but generally he's been pretty consistent for us,” he said.

“We all know as a footy club and Max knows you've got to do it over a long period of time. Certainly his graph is going in the right direction.

It was a pretty good effort. He had 27 and kicked three goals and he had ground balls, and tackles and he was all over the field. They picked three ruckman. He's been up against two genuine ruckmen a fair bit this year and it was a very good effort by him.”

No doubt about it.

He’s doing himself proud and another great Melbourne ruckman who started off in the No.37 jumper, before donning No.11.

And that man – Jim Stynes – would be proud as punch as Gawn.

In fact, Stynes predicted, when handing him his guernsey in the lead-up to his first AFL match, that Gawn was a man who would walk to the beat of his own drum and do it his way – and make a success of it.

It’s certainly seems to be panning out that way – and for the red and blue faithful, we’re thankful of that.