The club held the Kerry O'Keeffe Medal Night on Friday the 7th of April at Club Central. The night formally known as the Players Night was attended by nearly 100 people and sees the club announce some of the award winners for the season including the big one, the Kerry O'Keeffe Medal for Player of the Year.
The night moved away from the Panel format of previous years and was well MC'd by Matt Baden with the focus being on the award winners and the countdown of the Top 10 players down to the last 4 and then eventually the announcing of the eventual Winner of the Kerry O'Keeffe Medal.
The legend himself, former St George player Kerry O'Keeffe was in attendance to award the medal to First Grade allrounder Nathan Ellis. Ellis was once again the spearhead of the First Grade bowling attack with 30 wickets but it was his much improved batting that got him over the line by a narrow margin over last years winner Mitchell Edwards. Third place and 4th place went to the veterans Rod Krause and Steve Wark.
In accepting the award Ellis, discussed the extra focus he dedicated to his batting which saw him eventually promoted up the order and upgraded to allrounder status. He finished the season with 336 runs at 30.5 which included his maiden first grade half century, a match winning 71 against Fairfield in Round 6. The season before he scored 58 runs at 14.5.
Here were the final 10 Players
•1- Nathan Ellis
•2 - Mitchell Edwards
•3 - Stephen Krause
•4 - Rod Krause•5 – Josh Moors
•6 – Paul Witherly
•7 – Matt Lacey
•8 – Luke Bartier
•9 – Aaron Royall
•10 – Andrew Hicks
Tributes were also given to retiring player Stewart McCabe as well as Kevin Pillay.
Other awards went to -
Best Performed Bowler – Grades 1 to 3
Nathan Ellis - 30 wickets
Best Performed Bowler –Grades 3 to 5
Paul Francis – 32 Wickets
Best Performed Batsman – Grades 1 to 3
Mitch Edwards - 577 runs
Best Performed Batsman – Grades 3 to 5
Jackson Shaw – 411 runs
Jono Rose was presented the Sid Harris training award whilst Benji Hoppitt was named the Brian Booth / Alan Mantle scholorship holder for the coming season.
Congratulations to Nathan and all other award winners.
Previous Winners of the Kerry O'Keeffe Medal include -
06/07 - Rod Krause
07/08 - M. Henriques
08/09 - T. Copeland
09/10 - S. Cazzulino
10/11 - A. Pandelis
11/12 - G. Hunt
12/13 - S. Chu
13/14 - S. McCabe
14/15 - S. McCabe
15/16 - Mitch Edwards