23 down, one to go!

We’re nearly there. After another gruelling 23 rounds, we’ve reached Grand Final weekend in the AFL Fantasy realm and there are plenty of coaches still chasing a car, a hat, or bragging rights over their workmates in a head-to-head league. As we reach the 2025 season finale, a lot of our success can be attributed to the rookies who catapulted us up the rankings and helped ensure we were able to access the top-line players as upgrades. Below is the award ballot for seven different trophies and it’s crucial that you put your votes in to support the cash cows that supported you throughout the entire season. I’ll be back next week to announce all the winners and recap the season that was, but good luck to all the coaches out there vying for Grand Final glory and to SBF favourite Jonno Leach who currently sits 32nd overall!

PSA – if you can’t vote on the polls try clicking “view results” first and that should resolve the problem.

Rookie/cash cows are typically defined as players who started the season priced at $400,000 or lower

You can find more fantasy advice from Fry by joining the Fantasy SportsbyFry Patreon community!

Cash Cow King – Round 23

A lot of the popular rookies went missing in Round 23, but of course, Tom McCarthy still found his way into the top scorers. An 82-point effort in a 94-point loss is a huge effort and with one round to go, he could still claim CCK honours for 2025! Memorable cash cows such as Angus Clarke, Harry Rowston and Jaxon Prior earned another nomination on the back of their efforts last weekend, while Lions cub Sam Marshall excelled on Friday night to earn his first votes of the season.

*If you’re having issues submitting your vote try clicking “view results” first and that should resolve the problem 🤞

Who's gets your vote as the most important cash cow in Round 23?

• Angus Clarke (98)
• Jaxon Prior (80)
• Sam Marshall (94)
• Harry Rowston (91)
• Tom McCarthy (82)

View Results

 Loading ...

Round 23 Power Rankings

After 23 weeks of action, these are the top 10 cash cow performers in season 2025!

Power Ranking 2025 #AFLFantasy Cash Cows Round 23 💰🐮

1. Tom McCarthy ↔️
2. Levi Ashcroft ⬆️ 1
3. Daniel Curtin ⬇️ 1
4. Max Hall ↔️
5. Elijah Hewett ↔️
6. Jy Farrar ⬆️ 1
7. Hugh Boxshall ⬆️ 2
8. Harvey Langford ⬇️ 2
9. Mani Liddy (NR)
10. Clay Hall ⬇️ 2 pic.twitter.com/1KMBQbBB3m

— SportsbyFry (@sportsbyfry) August 19, 2025

Award Races

Game of the Year

Throughout this fantasy season, we saw rookie-priced players score 100 or more points on 15 different occasions – with noteworthy stars such as Dan Curtin, Levi Ashcroft and Sam Davidson hitting triple-figures multiple times. The class of 2025 didn’t take long to put serious numbers on the board with mature-agers Sam Davidson and Riley Bice producing back-to-back 125-point efforts in Round 3 & 4 respectively. Coaches who benefited from both of those scores burst out of the gates, while a lot of others were left playing catch-up. A few weeks later Zach Reid joined the party with an epic 118 points, fuelled by 27 disposals and 14 marks against Sydney.

His teammate Jaxon Prior also scored 115 in that same match, with Prior and a few others who hit the 115-point threshold (Levi Ashcroft – Rd. 8, Tyrell Dewar – Rd. 14) finishing amongst the honourable mentions. Surpassing them was Dan Curtin in Round 16 with a score of 118 and Max Hall one week earlier with a 124-point belter. I fully expect this vote to come down to which players you had in your team when they reached these lofty heights, with a portion of the fantasy community potentially missing out on ALL of these stellar scores.

 Loading ...

Cash Cow Coach of the Year

Choosing the Coach of the Year from a cash cow standpoint can often be a tough task. For example, Essendon head coach Brad Scott gifted us with an AFL record 15 debutants this season – however, outside of Zak Johnson and Angus Clarke those rookies have been largely irrelevant. I’m not throwing shade at mid-season pickups such as Archer May and Liam McMahon, but by the time most of the new Bombers donned the sash, our focus had shifted from cash generation to points on field. Richmond also blooded plenty of talent in 2025 with nine debutants of their own, headlined by Luke Trainor, Taj Hotton and No. 1 pick Sam Lalor. St Kilda and West Coast joined the Tigers by both giving nine players their first crack at AFL footy. The Saints probably had a more encouraging crop of cash cows with the likes of Hugh Boxshall, Alix Tauru and Max Hall standing out, while the Eagles’ debutants not named Tom McCarthy were rather underwhelming.

 Loading ...

Defender of the Year

The three finalists for this honour all produced unique seasons that could see a wide range of votes being cast. Zach Reid started the season at D7/D8 for a huge chunk of the fantasy community and scoring 83 points with 10 marks before the Bombers’ first bye in Round 4 turned plenty of heads. It was at that same time while Reid had his feet up that Riley Bice announced himself with a mouth-watering 125 points vs. North Melbourne. It quickly became clear that if we wanted to succeed early on, the cash generation that Reid and Bice offered was going to be crucial to our success. Things kept moving in the right direction following the first month of the season, only for a hamstring injury to derail Reid’s season in Round 11. Bice managed to post 93 points a few weeks later, but his season also fell in a heap around the mid-season byes.

Enter, Tom McCarthy. The No. 1 pick in the mid-season draft was acquired by every switched-on coach throughout the best-18 rounds and he hasn’t put a foot wrong since entering the Eagles’ lineup in Round 14. McCarthy scored 101 points on debut (becoming the first Eagle to rack up 30 touches in 2025 at the same time) and has followed it up with scores of 95, 78, 72, 70, 82, 91, 88 and 82. That level of consistency has seen McCarthy hold his place in some lineups as we enter the final weekend of the fantasy season and without him, there would be a lot of coaches who may have accepted rubbish emergency scores over the last few rounds. When choosing between Reid, Bice and McCarthy, the real question to ask is what we put more weight into – a superb start to the season or a fantastic finish?

 Loading ...

Midfielder of the Year

While Levi Ashcroft took out the lion’s share (pun intended) of the votes last week during the nomination round, Zak Johnson managed to pip Murphy Reid at the post by one vote to earn the last spot amongst the finalists! The budding Essendon MID had a decent cameo during an important time of the season – scoring 79 and 104 in consecutive rounds during the best-18 portion of the calendar. It’s fair to say that Demons duo Harvey Langford and Xavier Lindsay outperformed Johnson, with the first-rounders excelling in their first official fantasy campaign.

Langford has appeared in 21 games for Melbourne this season and performed admirably, while Lindsay produced some stellar ceiling scores (three 80+ outings in his first six career matches) to help his owners get off to a flying start. I’ve somewhat buried the lead, with Levi Ashcroft surely the outright favourite to claim Midfielder of the Year honours. The second son of Marcus came into the fantasy campaign with lofty expectations and it’s fair to say he delivered the goods. An average of 74.8 while featuring in every game this season should see him waltz to victory for this trophy.

 Loading ...

Ruckman of the Year

Another fantasy season, another disappointing run for the rookie rucks. While GWS tall Nic Madden and budding Eagle Archer Reid beat out their RUC rivals to earn a spot in the final count, I widely expect the R3/loophole option to take out this award for the second year running. The 190 points that Madden scored during the bye rounds did assist some coaches, but frankly, the rucks once again offered very little in terms of cash gen. To summarise just how poor the rucks were, in the 46 combined games that a rookie-priced ruckman played in 2025 there was only ONE score that surpassed 70 points. Yuk.

 Loading ...

Forward of the Year

This may be the tightest award race of them all. It’s possible that coaches reading this commenced the season with Sam Davidson, Daniel Curtin AND Max Hall in their initial side, which helped them establish a strong position across the first month or two. Obviously, Davidson got off to the fastest start – reaching a peak price of $673K while averaging 71.1 points through his first 14 games. That was inflated by a pair of triple-figure outings and just one score under 50 with Davo one of the few cash cows that we felt comfortable trusting through the middle portion of the fixture.

Sub vests and an omission or two from the Bulldogs’ senior team meant that Davidson quickly faltered and declined in price – with Max Hall and Daniel Curtin choosing that moment to surge back into contention. Hall has been ultra-consistent over the last eight rounds with no scores under 60 and a very impressive average of 80.4 points. In that same span, Adelaide’s versatile talent in Dan Curtin has had his own purple patch with two scores over 100 points while going at an 87-point clip. Your vote may be swayed depending on whether you bought back into Hall or Curtin after the bye rounds, but either way, all three rooks have a legitimate case to be named as the best FWD cash cow for 2025.

 Loading ...

Cash Cow MVP

I’ve highlighted how good all five finalists are in previous segments and while I believe there is a clear favourite for MVP honours, your vote will likely be swayed by which rookie helped you most throughout the 2025 campaign. Is it someone like Sam Davidson or Zach Reid who made cash in a hurry to start the season while also providing you with a decent source of points? Should Levi Ashcroft take out the crown as the most consistent performer throughout the season? Or, do you side with a player who found form at the back end of the year to boost your team’s points total, such as Daniel Curtin or Tom McCarthy? Previous winners of this award include Colby McKercher, Caleb Serong, Harry Sheezel, Sam Walsh and Nick Daicos – and one deserving cash cow will soon add his name to this prestigious list.

 Loading ...

Fry

An Australian coffee/burrito enthusiast who is the frustrated owner of 16 fantasy teams. Writer for SportsbyFry and DT Talk ?