The one-time Tullamarine junior in the Essendon District Football League continued the trend of lionhearted little men taking home the Cannons' highest individual honour, following in the footsteps of former teammate Dylan Joyce.

"To win a premiership and have that medal is unbelievable," McCallum told the Hume Weekly. It's an amazing feeling when you consider some of the past players who have won it."

McCallum - a one-eyed Collingwood supporter who was "brainwashed" as a child to join the Magpie army - could be destined for the big time.

The hard-at-it onballer and crumbing forward from Essendon-Keilor College held talks with North Melbourne and Hawthorn and is considered a real chance of stitching up a AFL rookie list position.

McCallum's story is similar to another young gun from this neck of the woods.

Jeremy Laidler, who played most of his juniors with Tullamarine before moving to the Doutta Stars, got the nod for Geelong's rookie list after being named the Cannons best-and-fairest in 2007 - the Cannons fourth title-winning season.

Last month, Laidler was elevated to the Cats senior list.

McCallum won the vote count by six votes from Taylor Hine, who last week signed with AFL expansion club Gold Coast, and equal third placegetters Thomas Liberatore and Serhat Temel.

"He [McCallum] had a really good first half of the year and polled all his votes then," Cannons football manager Len Villani said. "He had a bit of trouble with injury midway through the year and then we got him to the finals and he was pretty good and that got him over the line."

The award capped a fine season for McCallum, who was an integral part of the Cannons' title-winning team and was named in the TAC Cup team of the year in the backline alongside teammate Jake Carlisle, from Craigieburn.

"He didn't get a state screening or a draft camp," Villani said. "He was in the mix for Vic Metro at the start of the year and he just started off real well. As a player, he's hard-nosed and players look up to him."

It was away from the football field where McCallum made his greatest strides.

The Cannons' coaching staff had a "last chance" talk with the 178-centimetre, 68-kilogram Tullamarine junior about his football discipline and, moreover, life away from the club.