Awesome foursome Rising for glory

ANDY McGrath has the No.1 defensive rating in the AFL.

The Canadian-born Bomber has blanketed some of the game’s best forwards in his first season, recently keeping Eddie Betts goalless and to his smallest disposal count in four years — despite Adelaide’s 62 entries into its forward 50m.

“If he doesn’t win the Rising Star I’m pretty sure it’s rigged,” Essendon teammate Brendon Goddard said.

Carlton forward Charlie Curnow charged to the finish line like Winx. From rounds 13 to 23 the prototype of the modern-day player averaged 2.2 contested marks and 1.4 goals and was ranked the fifth-best key forward behind Lance Franklin, Tom Hawkins, Jarryd Roughead and Jon Patton.

“This kid is the buy of the footy world,” Melbourne great Garry Lyon said as the curly haired Curnow caught fire.

The former Geelong Falcon was the last, and best, of a clubrecord five Blues nominees.

This week the first four all backed Curnow, nicknamed “Reindeer”, to deliver Carlton its first overall winner.

While he warmed into the season, Port Adelaide’s Sam Powell-Pepper burst out of the gates.

The midfield bull broke 24 tackles this year, equal second with Jake Stringer, and his aggression was lauded from his first pre-season session.

After Powell-Pepper kicked two monster goals and scored the Round 1 nomination, champion Kane Cornes predicted he would be every bit as good as Ollie Wines.

Captain Travis Boak said he had “dropped” Wines and then put Hamish Hartlett “straight on his a---” over summer.

As his fend-off became a feature in games, he was likened to Dustin Martin.

And then there was Ryan Burton, deployed by Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson as a polished distributor behind the ball.

Burton beat Taylor Walker twice this year and former Hawk Daniel Harford, who also wore No.5, said Clarkson could build a team around the special talent.

After recent battles in two — Lewis Taylor v Marcus Bontempelli (2014), Jesse Hogan v Patrick Cripps (2015) and Callum Mills v Caleb Daniel (2016) — this year it is a race in four.

“Quite honestly any of the four could get your best vote,” AFL talent manager and judge Kevin Sheehan said.

“We’ve never had four contenders like this in the history of the award, and that’s since Nathan Buckley won it the first year (1993).”

Votes for the Rising Star were cast in the 5-4-3-2-1 format on Monday, with judges instructed to base their decisions solely on output this year.

The winner will be announced today.