BELIEVE some people and Smeltz winning the Johnny Warren Medal is the biggest injustice since... well... since NSL icon Bobby Despotovski won it three years ago.

The striker, they would say, has limited talents beyond putting the ball in the back of the net. Even then, they point out, almost half his goals have come from the penalty spot.

But those who make such accusations are, quite simply, wrong. Smeltz is a star of the A-League, and fully deserves every reward that comes his way. He's skilful, creative and shows remarkable vision on the park.

Sometimes he shows the elusiveness of Danny Allsopp to be in the right place at the right time. Sometimes he shows the technique of Sergio van Dijk to take the ball into the dangerous area himself. He is multi-dimensional and any A-League club would gladly welcome him into their starting line-up.

Too bad for them, he'll be playing for the Gold Coast next year. And the new club's fans are salivating at the prospect of seeing him line up with the creative forces of Culina, Porter, Minniecon, Jefferson and Robson.

Any argument against Smeltz being a worthy winner is, for me, ruled out by one simple fact. The award is decided by his peers - surely the best judges of all. Every player knows what it's like to face up against Hernandez, Miller, Jamieson or Thompson but they fear Smeltz most of all. Even Craig Moore, probably the most respected Australian player of the last decade and an imposing force for the Roar this season, could not displace the Wellington star.

That Smeltz has achieved so much in the past two seasons with the ‘Nix is a truly remarkable deed. Virtually every opponent the team has come up against will have had the same basic plan: stop Smeltz and you stop Wellington. Despite this, he's managed 21 goals in 39 matches.

His Golden Boot winning tally this season accounted for more than half of Wellington's goal tally. Even without the five penalties, he scored seven of the team's 18. No other player comes close to carrying his side to such an extent. Indeed, Smeltz carried a team barely improved on last year's wooden-spooners all the way to within one win of making the finals.

If the question was, "Who is the ‘best', ‘most complete' or ‘most entertaining' footballer in the A-League?" Smeltz probably wouldn't have won the Johnny Warren Medal. But that is not the purpose of the award.

It is to identify who has stood out as a genuine star of the game. Smeltz certainly is that, and the more we see of him in the A-League the better.

Now that GC Utd seem to have fought off the Turkish poachers, hopefully we'll see Smeltz starring on an even bigger stage come this time next season when the club (hopefully) embarks on its inaugural finals campaign.