I would like to congratulate Brendan Waters, Luke Williams, and Tom Morrison on the awards the won at the Western Suburbs Magpies presentation night last Wednesday.
Brendan won the Noel Kelly Award which is the award given to the best player in the club, from Harold Matthews all the way up to Ron Massey Cup. This is the second year in a row Bren has won this award and is a great achievement. He has had a few niggling injuries throughout this season but he has still managed to perform on the field each week and lead the boys around the park. I think his game this year is better than last year. The difference is last year we had a stronger forward pack with more go forward whereas this year we didn't have that luxury. Bren then had to create more opportunities from slower play the balls and do a lot more work on building pressure with more touches throughout games. He also got a lot of pressure from other teams, so being able to still set up as many tries as he has for us this year shows how is game is progressing. I think this season has helped his game develop into areas that he didn't have to before in the past.
Bren also captained the Ron Massey Cup Rep team to victory this season beating Queensland up on the Gold Coast. This kept his unbeaten record in the rep games going and also showed his great leadership qualities. Many comments were made from players I spoke to and coaching staff about his attitude in camp all week and how it helped them to victory.
I look forward to seeing him have a big off season and improve on his game again for the 2018 season.
Luke Williams won the Ron Massey Cup's Best and Fairest award. This is a huge achievement for Luke. He has was a really consistent, solid, reliable player for us last year and this year he has continued that form even though he had a late positional change that he hadn't really prepared for. It just shows the character of the bloke in that he is willing to put the team first and do whatever is
best for his teammates. Another reason why I believe this is a huge achievement is that Luke has Achilles tendonitis which he has played with all year. He was told he needed four months of rest for it to heal completely but he has not missed one training session or game all year due to this. I have been doing some work on it for him each week to help him get through and it hasn't caused him any problems.
Tom Morrison won the Ron Massey Cups Most Consistent Player award and also the Pratten Park Magpies Award for club man of the year. It was great to see Tom acknowledge for his efforts all year. He coached the Western Suburbs Magpies S.G Ball team to the semi-finals in his first ever year of coaching which was a great effort for anyone yet alone a first year coach. He brought a group of young players together very well and he really loved his role and the players he had in his team. He done everything possible to help them succeed. For example, he spent hours doing video sessions and reviewing individuals games each week and helped them implement the things they spoke about on the field. Not too many S.G Ball coaches would have put the amount of time into their players as Tom did and probably not to the fine detail either.
On top of this Tom also worked in the office a couple of days a week and helped out around the club. Nothing was ever too much for him. This is amazing considering he has a young family and found time for all that he has done this year. It is a well deserved award.
For Tom's game personally he came back to full training a little late this year and started playing once the S.G Ball season was over. He was so focused on his boys that we didn't want him to have to sacrifice any of that as we knew how hard he was working with his players and how much he loved it and also how well the boys were progressing. Tom is a dedicated trainer so while he came back late he wasn't that underdone. For his standards he may have felt so but all in all he was still at a decent level. This showed as he helped strengthen our team immediately upon his return to playing. He played many positions for us and done a great job in each of them. He played five-eighth for the first time in Ron Massey Cup and was very solid there. I think the coaching and thinking about the game in far more detail helped him understand the role a lot more which allowed him to adapt his game and make the small tweaks we spoke about. Tom is a reliable player who you know is going to perform each week and the most consistent award fits him perfectly this year.
Individual awards are not the reason why any of these players play the game. They all know it is about the team but I think it is good to see them recognised for their efforts all year. Well done, keep working hard.