Star recruit clinches medal win

By Brad Kingsbury
STAR Doveton ruckman Russell Gabriel took out the Norm Walker Medal for the Casey Cardinia league’s fairest and best player for 2009 on the last vote of the night at Monday’s MPNFL vote-count dinner.
Gabriel was among the leaders that included team-mate Ryan Hendy, Berwick captain Andrew Tuck and young Cranbourne star Ryan Jones from the half way mark of the exciting count.
The former Dandenong Stingrays captain polled three votes against Tooradin in round 15 to take his tally to 18 and then held on as Hendy (17), Jones (17), Tuck (15) and Narre Warren ace Michael Collins (15) closed the gap.
The next three players, all with 13 votes, were Beau Miller from Tooradin, Daniel Borninkhof from Narre Warren and Clinton King from Keysborough.
Gabriel was among several star recruits to transfer to the Casey Cardinia League this year.
He narrowly missed being drafted after two seasons with the Dandenong Stingrays TAC Cup side in 2006 and 2007, and then spent 2008 playing with VFL club Frankston Dolphins before relocating to the Doves this year.
It was Gabriel’s first senior best-and-fairest award after two runners-up trophies at the Stingrays and he reserved the highest gratitude for the Doveton Football Club.
“I didn’t really give myself a show because I played most of the year with an injury,” he said. “I liked my time at Frankston but Doveton was more career-orientated and they organised a plumbing apprenticeship for me and had me working straight away.”
As far as developing his football and having another crack at the higher level, Gabriel was non-committal and said he was in no rush.
“I’m not sure. I’m still only young and I think I’ll just see how things go at the moment. I’ve got plenty of time.”
Gabriel said that he had played almost the entire second season at the Stingrays with Posterities Pubis, which had severely hampered him and made it difficult to get noticed as a draft prospect.
“That probably cost me in the end, but that’s the way it went,” he said. The high-marking ruckman-forward has only played in one grand final to date and that was a losing effort with Hallam Junior Football Club.
He was tied to EDFL club Cora Lynn as a junior but said he was very happy playing with Doveton in the Casey Cardinia League now.
Several players who many thought would poll well finished further down the list than expected including Greg Tivendale, Luke Walker and Robbie Taylor.
The Bill Williamson Medal for the reserves was wrongly presented to Devon Meadows’ Tommy Hayes, after a technical glitch which failed to identify that Hayes had actually been suspended during the season.
Beaconsfield veteran and coach Scott Mather, who finished second in the count, will now take the award.
The under-18s award went the way of Beaconsfield young gun Patrick Chin, who also played a game with the seniors this year.