Hayes amassed an enormous 198 ranking points against second-ranked Seymour on the weekend — in a losing team — firming further as the favourite for the league’s best and fairest award.
Rochester’s Joe Atley accepted an early plea after being reported for striking against Shepparton in round 13 and sat out the Tigers’ 11-point loss to Tatura on Saturday.
He is now ineligible for the medal, having earlier been considered a likely challenger to Hayes as the stand-out player for the lower-ranked Tigers.
Euroa’s GVL Data “points pig’’, Hayes, was the dominant player on the ground but was unable to impact the final result as Seymour won its 13th match of the season.
Hayes, who has had the ball in his possession more than any other player in the competition, finished with 30 kicks and 20 handballs, laid 10 tackles, was credited with 10 inside 50 entries and five clearances.
It was the highlight of his 13 game season, having had 42 possessions twice earlier in the season and 41 disposals in another match.
Hayes, whose team lost by 13 points, is averaging 36.3 disposals this season and is also elite in the categories of tackling (7.4 a game), inside 50s (6.3), clearances (5.6) and goals (1.4).
He has kicked 18 goals this season and when he doesn’t have the ball is equally as effective.
Against Mooroopna in round 10 he had a season low 26 disposals, but laid 15 tackles for the afternoon. He followed that up with a 12 tackle-nine clearance-36 disposal game against Benalla.
In another quirky statistic that won’t have gone unnoticed by the devotees of the GVL Data pages, Euroa brothers Jacob, Max and Jayden Gleeson combined for 79 disposals, 14 inside 50s and six rebound 50s in a spectacular return for the siblings.
Seymour confirmed its status as one of the best aerial teams in the competition when it took a staggering 136 marks for the match (125 of those uncontested) with its high possession style game.
Five Lions had 10 or more marks in the match, Seymour’s Jack Murphy the Lions leading ball winner with 35 disposals to go with his six tackles and four clearances.
For the second occasion this year Mooroopna big man Jackson Trengove has kicked a bag of 10 goals in a game.
Trengove, who now has 47 goals from 12 games, achieved the feat for the first time this year in round six against Rochester.
He repeated the performance against Shepparton United on the weekend, to go with six goals against Mansfield and his five-three goal hauls for the season.
