Nat Fyfe, Bradley Hill and Lachie Neale have been named as Fremantle’s three nominees for the 36th AFL Players’ Association MVP Award, announced on Tuesday 12 September in Melbourne.

Fyfe is in the running for his third MVP award, after winning the Leigh Matthews Trophy in 2014 and in his Brownlow Medal season in 2015.

21-year-old Luke Ryan has been nominated for the best first year player award while Fyfe has been nominated for the most courageous player award.

As Fremantle captain, Fyfe has been automatically nominated for the best captain award.

The nomination for the MVP Award is a two-stage process. The first involves players nominating three teammates for the award, before the three nominees from every club are presented to all players to decide the winner.

Players cannot vote for their own teammates in stage two of the process.

A similar process is followed for best first year player and most courageous awards, however just one player is nominated from each club.

After almost a year out of the game due to a broken leg sustained in round five of the 2016 season, Fyfe quickly returned to his best averaging 26.4 disposals – 14.9 contested – in 2017 while showing significant growth in his contested marking, averaging 1.8 per game.

Playing as an inside midfielder alongside Fyfe, Neale led Fremantle with 142 clearances from his 21 games in 2017, averaging 6.8 per game as well as 27.2 disposals and 4.5 marks per game.

Speedy wing man Bradley Hill established himself as the league’s best for repeat sprints which, according to Champion Data, involves running above 24 km/h for at least one second.

Hill led the league for repeat sprints, averaging 35.3 per game on his way to collecting 23.5 disposals per game – the fourth most for Fremantle in 2017.

From 11 appearances in his first AFL season, Ryan impressed as half-back on his way to a NAB AFL Rising Star nomination in round 20, averaging 15.9 disposals and 6.3 marks per game.