Tara Murray
Wallan’s Steven Boyall didn’t think he had much of a chance of taking out the Riddell District Football League Bowen Medal until his phone started to go hot before the night.
A key for the Magpies in their preliminary final run, Boyall made it back-to-back Bowen Medal winners from Wallan on Friday night
Boyall polled 29 votes to finish ahead of Riddell’s Mick Edwards who polled 21 votes. Woodend-Hesket’s Jack Arceri finished third on 18 votes.
Boyall said he didn’t know what to expect heading into the night.
“It was nice to win,” he said. “I try not to think about these things too much.
“A lot of messages came in saying good luck and I got a bit nervous. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was a bit of a relief to win after all the messages.”
Boyall said he thought he had a pretty consistent season, which was reflected in the voting.
He said having no injuries also helped meant he was fresher heading into games.
While the Bowen Medal is nice recognition of his season, Boyall said it would have been nicer if they had a premiership to show for it as well.
“That still hurts,” he said of being knocked out in the preliminary final. “We’ll look to move forward and have another crack next year.”
It was a big night for the Wallan boys as they made a clean sweep of the football awards.
Matthew Traynor won the James Scarbrough Medal as the best and fairest in the reserves, while Spencer Whittington won the Charles Watson Medal was the under-19.5 best and fairest winner.
Boyall said it was really good for the club to see that recognition across the board.
“Matty Traynor should be playing senior footy,” he said. “Spencer, I haven’t seen a lot of him play. He played one game for us before getting injured.
“It’s good for the club and it’s a nice reward. It’s recognition of how good the club is going.”
In other awards, Edwards claimed the Steve Turner rising gun award for the best young player.
Boyall said he didn’t realise that Edwards was that young and tipped he would be a gun player for many years to come.
Corey Grindlay won the player of the year award as voted by the coaches.
Wallan led the way with players in the team of the year, with seven players making the final 22.
Boyall and Grindlay were named in the team along with Michael Mannix, Corey Viani, Sean Morris, Matthew Perri and Ricky Schraven.
Diggers Rest’s Taylor Hine, Luke Delahey, Mitch Jensen, Marcus Calvaresi and Mitch Day all featured in the team.
Riddell also had five representatives, Edwards, Ben Sonogan, Callum Williamson, Josh Grabham and Riley Paterson.
There were three representatives from Macedon and two from Romsey. First year Woodend-Hesket coach Josh Pound was named coach of the year.
Wallan won club of the year ahead of Diggers Rest and Woodend-Hesket.
