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CARLTON'S latest John Nicholls Medallist, Chris Judd, has spoken of his delight at being a part of the club's rejuvenation in his first season, but has warned against complacency as Carlton reflects on a year of positives.

Judd was the runaway winner of the club's best and fairest award on Thursday night, ahead of Marc Murphy and Brendan Fevola, and he took the opportunity to urge his teammates on to bigger and better things next year.

"It's obviously a very big honour. Just playing AFL footy is a big achievement and to win individual awards is a big honour, but by the same token, it's not what you play for," Judd said at the Crown Palladium.

"Playing finals and achieving the ultimate [premiership] success is what the game's all about. Hopefully if we get our act together and work hard enough, we'll be lucky enough to experience that.

"The main thing I was looking to do was just get out on the park and play footy this year, so I certainly achieved that and, from a team perspective, to win 10 games was probably at the upper end of what I was hoping for. I reckon it's been a solid start, but we've certainly got a long way to go.

"It's an exciting time to be at this footy club, obviously it's got a very proud history and it's been down for a little while now, but you get the sense that the club's really building towards something now and I think it's just an exciting time to be a part of it."

With his right arm in a sling following a minor arthroscopic shoulder 'clean out', Judd said the groin issues that dogged him during his last season with West Coast became less of a factor as the year wore on and he thanked the club for their faith in him.

"At no stage did I feel like the coaching staff or the [club] hierarchy were putting undue pressure on me and I think that made everything a lot easier," he said of his path back to full fitness following groin release surgery.

"The body felt really good and held up well. Coming off a pretty ordinary year last year it took a lot to get going, but the longer the year went on the better I felt and that's not something you can say [too often] in AFL footy."

The Brownlow Medallist has been everything Carlton fans could have wished for in his first year in navy blue, but he admitted he did take a little while to settle in.

"Probably the turning point for me was round seven when we played the West Coast Eagles," he explained.

"Up till then I probably still identified myself as an Eagles' player. Having the Carlton boys in there bashing into the Eagles' players and looking after me, that was the turning point for me, and ever since then I've felt that this is my club and I'm rapt to be part of it.

"I've never had a 'proper job', but I imagine when you change jobs or whenever you change football clubs it's challenging; it's just like changing schools.

"You do get quite comfortable when you're at the one job for six years, which is what it was at West Coast, and all of a sudden you come to a new environment with new challenges and people who don't know you and you don't know them.

"In that sense it was challenging, but I was lucky to come into a group that has been so accepting and that's made the task easier. They've been a great group to work with."