The son of former Albury star Stephen, Ash was part of the Vic Country outfit which fell agonisingly short of claiming the national championships, falling by five points to Western Australia with the last kick of the game on Wednesday.

"Obviously it's a massive honour," he said.

The Vic Country co-captain played all four games in defence.

"He's a real competitor and uses his explosive power and speed from behind the footy," Bushrangers' coach Mark Brown said.

"He's an 80-90m player, he grabs it and runs 30-40 and then kicks it 40-50 and, all of a sudden, you transition the ball from your half-back line to deep forward.

"He leaves no stone unturned, he does everything right and trains at a real AFL intensity already, he demands a lot of himself and his carnival reflected that."

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Ash, who turned 18 on June 21, trained with Richmond in December.

"I got a taste of what it's like and ever since then I've really stepped up how I train and I think that's why I've improved a fair bit this year," he said.

The Year 12 student impressed with his dash.

"The most pleasing part was he takes the game on, he just grabs the ball and runs and carries," Brown said of the exciting Shepparton product.

"He's managed to take it from league footy and duplicate it at the national championships.

"And this year, he's really improved his kicking, he was always a good kick but was capable of chopping it up occasionally, but he's almost eradicated that completely."

At 186cms, the powerful Ash was recently tipped in AFL circles as a potential top five pick in the draft.

The Bushies had five players at the nationals in Cam Wild, Elijah Hollands (Vic Country) joining Ben Kelly and Will Chandler (Allies).

Lavington's Euriah Hollard and Yarrawonga's Will Sexton will play for NSW-ACT Rams in the under 16's.