Cameron Guthrie’s brilliant 2020 home and away season was rewarded with his first All Australian blazer on Thursday night.

Guthrie excelled with increased responsibility in Geelong’s midfield following the departure of Tim Kelly and the extended absence of captain Joel Selwood for large parts of the year.

He finished the regular season as Geelong’s major ball winner, averaging 22 disposals and four clearances per game. He was ranked 12th in the AFL for effective disposals and led the Cats for pressure acts.

After being a consistent performer in his 161 games prior to this season, the boy from Sunbury took his game to another level in 2020.

However, despite already being a very good player, he never really saw himself as being amongst the elite players in the game and was surprised when Geelong’s General Manager of Football, Simon Lloyd delivered the news that he was an All Australian.

“I honestly didn’t really picture myself as an All-Australian player, to be here I’m actually genuinely surprised,” Guthrie said.

“It’s good recognition, I am pretty stoked to have people outside the footy club recognise what I can do out on the footy field.”

Guthrie believes his success can be attributed to many years of hard work.

“I think it is an accumulation of a few years in the system now of always trying to improve my game over a period, so nothing special or exciting, just showing up and doing the work.”

“We are really excited and looking forward to getting over there.

“We had a good win over them a few weeks back, but we are not expecting it to be anything like that game which I think was a bit of a blowout in the end.”

“We are just looking forward to the test, we have put ourselves in a really good position being in the top four and looking forward to testing ourselves.”