IRYMPLE skipper Mark Thomson was rewarded for a season of consistently good performances with both bat and ball when he won Sunraysia cricket’s highest individual honour on Wednesday night.
The all-rounder finished on 20 votes to win the Innes Medal, three ahead of Mildura West run machine Chris Williams, with Gol Gol star Shac Thomas a further vote behind.
It’s Thomson’s first major senior cricket award and comes on the eve of this weekend’s First Division grand final against his brother Adam’s team, Gol Gol.
“It’s a big honour for me. I’ve finished fourth or fifth a couple of times before (in the Innes Medal race), but I’ve never been anywhere near the top,” Mark said.
“There’s been a lot of really good players win this award before, and there’s still a lot of good players in the competition. It really is an honour to win it.”
Thomson has had a solid all-round season, with overall averages of 36.6 with the bat (highest score of 90) and 19.2 with the ball (best bowling 6/46).
Asked whether he felt he had been rewarded for his consistency over the summer, he said: “Yes, I have.
“It’s traditionally been an all-rounder’s award and I was lucky enough to do enough in a few games to win it.
“I didn’t start the season that well. I only had one vote after the first four or five rounds.
“Shac started the season really well and I thought he’d go out to a lead where nobody would catch him. But he didn’t end up with as many votes as I expected him to get.”
He said it was another confidence boost heading into the grand final.
“Hopefully we can just roll on with the momentum from the past couple of weeks and last night’s award,” Thomson said.
As for how the brothers were shaping up for battle, he said: “It’s been pretty low key.
“We’ve played a couple of grand finals with each other, but not against each other before.
“He did try to sneak a bit out of me with our final selection, because we’ll have one change this week, but I stayed tight-lipped on it.
“This weekend, he’ll be just another player really.”
The other major award winners on Wednesday night included Mildura Settlers’ Sarah Telfer, who was named the Premier Women’s MVP.
Thomas did pick up an honour on the night, taking out the Champion men’s player award with 1117 points, ahead of Williams (949).
The Under 18 Male Player of the Year was Lewis Dichiera (Nichols Point), while Abby Collihole (Gol Gol) won the girls’ 18s category.
Mark Dorman was the Umpire of the Year, with Gavan Slade in second place.
Gol Gol won the club championship ahead of Irymple, and Gol Gol groundsman Mark Blows took out the club curatorial award.
Meanwhile, Ouyen’s Conor Schultz and Fire Brigade’s Jason Beard were joint winners of the Red Cliffs Cricket Association’s A Grade best-and-fairest award on Tuesday night.
