Bash for the Border - Awards night

Well it was a huge night at Smokey Bob's Ribs and Rotgut - the Flavorless Flavs Supercoach AFL Team, their fans, the coach (me) and support staff all met for a drink, a laugh and to wrap up the year that was with a good old awards ceremony. And after the smoke cleared (and the cops were called for a bit of a brawling incident) we found ourselves with the top ten players of season 2022. Let's congratulate all our big winners shall we and find out the very best of the very best.

Where possible, I've used their original photo from their time being reported on via Almigo's Adventures. For those I forgot to assign a photo too across the year, well a quick Google sorted that issue out... 

10. NEWCOMBE - Landing somewhere in the mix circa round 9 or 10 (I'm not 100% clear on exactly when..) Newcombe was one of the few who played well enough not to get cut, traded or swapped out on a whim (and there were quite a lot of players in that boat!) Proving himself right to the season ender, he's done himself proud here, ended up in the final ten.

9. ELLIS - For some strange reason I've lost the record of when Ellis joined the team but I think it was later on in the piece, possibly in the last quarter of the season. Regardless, he did well enough to make it to the top ten and thanks for your input to the Flav's this year!

8. MCDONALD - Had some great games and ended up in the top 3 and then had a shocker and hung out in the bottom section for a while. After a bit of a see saw few rounds, he got the hang of the season and stayed towards the top quarter of the pack for most of it. 

7. YOUNG - Second highest DEF average after Hurn and replacing the struggling Lever, joining in round 5, Young carved himself a nice seat on the back line and then hung on for dear life for the rest of the year in amongst quite a lot of chops and changes. 

6. CURNOW - Picked up ten rounds in, Curnow stayed right to the end from there with a couple of cracker games to his name and a good average for the rest of it. Subbed in a lot of my Forwards that either failed to perform (Franklin) or just weren't there (Martin.) 

5. MCGOVERN - Did so well in the first half of the season, he made the cut into this final list even though he was out for the rest of it. While the Eagles had a horrific year in real life, both McGovern and Hurn (still to come) provided a strong line of defence in the early games of which I'm very grateful for.  

4. PENDLEBURY - Last years number one and this year, well I likened him to F1's Sergio Perez - knows what he's doing, when he's doing it, isn't as nuts as Verstappen, didn't fall over very often. everybody loves him. Solid performance throughout the year and more than worthy of a spot in next years lineup if the opportunity presents itself. 

3. THE LUGGAGE - I remember when Covid hit the Brisbane team and I had big hopes that the Luggage wasn't one of the players rubbed out because of it, letting out a big sigh of relief when I read that infected list and he wasn't named. Usually found at the higher end of the weekly scorers, he only missed a couple of games across season 2022 and after this year, he'll definitely be on my want list come the pizza and beer selection party early next year. 

2. HURN - Such a quiet achiever who had a go as captain for a week and then quietly hung back and just brought great performance after great performance each and every week. So much so that it was almost set and forget with Hurn, he made his home on the back line and rarely moved for most of the season. 

Which just leaves...

1. THE BONT - There's no I in team. You can't pin the hopes of a squad on just one man. And yet come selection time, I was sincerely hoping that Dusty Martin would be the saviour and take me further than he did last year. 
Only it wasn't to be was it? He took time off for personal reasons and when he returned the results were ok but nothing earth shattering. And then he wasn't available later in the year because of injury which goes a way in explaining why his name hasn't made it to the top ten this year.

However while I was far too concerned for him, The Bont revved his engines in the background and quickly raced forward to snatch the captain's crown. It went back and forth the next few rounds but he started to cement his position as the team gun and that crown never shifted again. When he was average, he still had a decent game. When he was on fire though...well he was the truest definition of an all star, so much so that Tyson tried to bribe me for him once my early season was over. Only the Luggage could come close to such an outcome as Stringer Box tried to woo him away a few weeks earlier. 

Maybe I just knew something when I assigned the picture of Horus to him, one of the most pivotal charters in the entire Warhammer 40k universe..

Number one by a decent margin, we're looking forward to snapping up the Bont's services again early next year!

So that wraps up this years (2022) AFL season folks, join us next year for a new team and hopefully a slightly better idea where we're going - Coach