Royal Josh Smith wins first Bernie Naylor MedalWednesday, September 4, 2013 - 2:08 AM - by Chris Pike

JOSH Smith has been far and away the best big key forward in the WAFL since returning to the league with East Perth in 2011, and has been rewarded for his consistency in front of goals by winning the 2013 Bernie Naylor Medal.

Smith kicked 62 goals for East Perth in the 2013 home and away season giving him an average of just over three goals a game in the 19 matches he played with a best of six in Round 22 against Perth at Leederville's Medibank Stadium.

The 62 goals for the season sees the 27-year-old Smith win the Bernie Naylor Medal for the first time in his 80-game WAFL career as the league's leading goalkicker for 2013.

Smith also becomes the first East Perth player to claim the award since Troy Wilson did so in 2006 by kicking 74 goals.

Remarkably, it has been a rare feat for East Perth players to win the Bernie Naylor Medal though.

Smith and Wilson are the only two East Perth players to claim a Bernie Naylor Medal since Glen Bartlett won it with 69 goals in 1990 and before that you have to go back 23 more years to 1967 when Phil Tierney was the league's leading goal scorer with 111.

East Perth had back-to-back winners in 1958 and 1959 when Bill Mose and Neil Hawke kicked 114 and 110 goals respectively but that ended a 14-year break between the Royals having a leading goalkicker.

Alan Watts kicked 94 goals in 1944 with East Perth's best run coming in the 1920s when Hugo Campbell kicked 65 goals in 1924, 82 in 1926 and 74 in 1927 as he became the Royals' first ever league leading goal scorer.

The Royals in total have only had nine leading goalkickers before Smith's success of 2013.

The big man began his WAFL career with West Perth in 2007 where he played mostly at centre half-forward for the Falcons playing 20 games, averaging 15 possessions and five marks a game while also kicking 24 goals and helping out in the ruck.

That saw him end up drafted into the AFL by North Melbourne and over the next three years he broke through for 11 games with the Kangaroos, and spent the rest of the time continuing to develop into an outstanding key forward in the VFL playing in North Ballarat's premierships of the 2008, 2009 and 2010.

When delisted by North Melbourne, he decided to join East Perth and in the three years since he has far and away been the best big, power forward in the WAFL.

Big, key forward targets have gone out of vogue to a large degree in modern football allowing Smith to become the standout power forward of the WAFL.

Even recent Bernie Naylor Medallists Ben Saunders from South Fremantle, Blake Broadhurst from Subiaco and Chad Jones from Claremont are much more the leading type forwards where as Smith is more the traditional big, key target who can take strong contested marks.

Smith is much more in the vein of Brad Smith, who won Bernie Naylor Medals with Subiaco in 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008, and East Perth's last winner Wilson in 2006 but forwards like them are becoming all the more rare in the modern game.

You only need to look at the 2013 goalkicking leaderboard to see that Smith is the odd man out as the only true big man who his team can bank on being able to kick long to and for him to either take a strong mark, or at least bring the ball to ground.

Perth's mid-sized pair Paul Bevan and Brennan Stack finished second and third respectively kicking 55 and 52 goals each with Swan Districts' lead-up, and duck back, master Tim Geappen booting 48 goals for the year.

Then there were small forwards Dayle Garlett (Swan Districts) and Ian Richardson (Claremont) next with 45 goals each with Claremont veteran full-forward Jones next with 37 majors taking his career tally to 401 from 127 games.

Another Claremont small forward Paul Medhurst was next with 33 goals followed by Peel's Brad Holmes with 33, South Fremantle's Mitch Banner 33, another Bulldog Paul Mugambwa 32, West Perth's Anthony Tsalikis 32 and Claremont's Anton Hamp 32.

The biggest bag of goals kicked by any player this season was the eight kicked by Brad Dick for East Fremantle against West Perth in Round 8 at East Fremantle Oval.

However, Smith was the most consistent goalkicker of the season despite the constant double and triple-teaming he would receive from the opposition back-lines.

His season-best was six goals in Round 22 but he also kicked five goals on five occasions in Rounds 3, 8, 9, 13 and 18, and four goals another two times in Rounds 20 and 24.

Smith has now kicked 170 goals in 60 games with East Perth over the last three seasons at an average of just under three a game while also converting well with 170.86 at a strike rate of 66 per cent.

He will now be a key part of East Perth finals campaign beginning with a cut-throat first semi-final against Swan Districts at Bassendean's Steel Blue Oval on Sunday afternoon.