Abbey Field from Junee sitting in the top 5 for both tag and tackle.
With the Group 9 First Grade competition entering the final stretch of the regular season, the race for the all-important Weissel Medal is heating up.
Awarded to the best and fairest player across the Group 9 regular season, votes for the medal traditionally go behind closed doors for the final four rounds of the year, with the final public numbers released last Wednesday ahead of round 13 games played over the weekend.
Through the first 12 rounds of the Great Northern Premiership, Temora’s Hayden Philp led the race out on 14 votes, one ahead of Kangaroos pair James Smart and Shane Hannam who were tied for second. Philp has a good history with best and fairest awards, having won Group 20’s Ray Thorpe Medal twice during his stint at Leeton in 2019 and 2022.
One man of the match performance behind Philp in equal fourth were Albury co-captain Paul Karaitiana and Gundagai forward Wilson Hamblin, who rounded out the top five on 11 points. Ever the humble team player, Karaitiana said that his surprising individual success this season has come off the back of the performances of his Thunder teammates.
“I feel like I’ve just been getting better every week, especially with my left edge, [they have] been helping me out a lot,” he said. “I feel like as a team we’ve been doing good, just building our combinations.”We’ve got a few good new boys.”Now the forward pack has been doing good, which allows me to play a bit of footy.”
As for whether he thinks his stellar season so far will be rewarded with a finals berth, Karaitiana said that the Thunder’s focus is on controlling what they can and putting themselves in the best possible position to make up the gap on fifth-placed Young.
“I think especially with the way we’ve been going the last three or four games before the Brothers game, we played some top quality teams, and we came close to all of them,” he said. “I think just building at the back end of the season will help us hopefully make finals. “We can only control what we do, so I think if we win all four games we’ll have a good chance of making finals.”
Meanwhile, in the Sewell Design Reserve Grade competition, Albury’s Kieran Ford held a lead representative of his side’s dominance of the competition this season, sitting six votes clear on 17 points at the front of the pack through 12 rounds.
Much like Karaitiana, Ford was surprised to find out about his standing in the race for the individual honour and credited his teammates for helping him to stand out amongst the competition.
“It’s quite a surprise to be honest, I didn’t think I’d be at the top,” he said. “It’s good, all the boys are playing good footy, it’s just a credit to them really.”
Despite their strong performance this season inviting the tag of premiership favourites, Ford said that the Thunder are not too concerned about either the undefeated streak or the finals at this stage.
“We’re just looking to better ourselves each week, we’ve come a long way even since the last Kangaroos game we played, we’ve learned a lot,” he said. “We’re just looking to build every week, we’re not too worried about the undefeated streak or anything like that, we’re just trying to be better and take each week as it comes and go from there.”
Looking at the Reece Group Women’s Tackle competition, Estella pair Milly Lucas and Holly Williams shared the lead with Junee’s Abbey Field, with all three sitting on nine votes. Temora’s Alicia Haisell sat in fourth place on eight, while Junee’s Anabelle Willis and Young’s Josie Hoey rounded out the top five on seven votes each.
The Downer League Tag race through 12 rounds was led by Tumut’s Brigid Rhynehart on a massive 20 votes, with Temora’s Emily Perrot in second on 18.
In a show of her versatility between the two formats, Abbey Field sat in third on 16 votes, while Monique Luff, Maisy McCrone and Molly McCrone shared fourth position with 14 votes tallied.
Finally, the top five for the Regional Australia Bank Under 18s competition released after the final round of publicly available voting saw Kangaroos’ Tyler Jordan leading on 20 votes, ahead of Cootamundra’s Ollie Hall (17 votes), Young’s Cooper Smith (13 votes), Junee’s Cooper Vanzanten (12 votes). Emerging Brothers talent Xavier Williams-Byers and Temora young gun Kayne Crowe round out the top six, with 10 votes apiece.
– Tallon Smith – Group 9 Media
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