the WGCA’s best

By Brad Kingsbury
PAKENHAM captain coach Andrew Cooper was named the West Gippsland Cricket Association’s Agrade player of the year at last Friday’s presentation night.
The talented allrounder, who is also a Dandenong and District Cricket Association Wookey Medallist, had a wonderful season with both bat and ball, but said that the individual honour was not a substitute for a premiership.
“These sorts of individual honours are great but the aim is always to win a flag,” he said.
“I suppose this is nice to recognise your achievements during the year but there’s a lot of players that do well, isn’t there?”
Cooper said that leading a young team had its own challenges and, although he was yet to decide on his role next year, he believed that Pakenham had the basis of talent to take it up the ladder.
“I always try to put the pressure on the younger fellows but if I need to stand up I will, that’s my job.”
“Club leadership is what it’s about. We’ve got some really good kids and the youth core of the club is really good. What they need is a bit more discipline and willingness to know how far they can get in cricket,” Cooper said.
The night was held at the Pine Grove Hotel in Upper Beaconsfield and hosted superbly by WGCA Country Week coordinator and Merinda Park coach Brett Armitage.
Another highlight of the night was the announcement of Beaconsfield allrounder Ryan O’Connor as the Glasscock Medallist for the best WGCA player during the Melbourne Country Week interleague carnival.
An award was also made to Cranbourne Meadows youngster Adam Thornton for his brilliant century in the representative series.
Jack Hayes presented awards sponsored by Willow Wizard to the Agrade and Bgrade most valuable players with Officer captain Ben Tivendale and Upper Beaconsfield paceman Scott Pitcher the respective recipients.
Association president Bob Taylor congratulated individual award winners and distributed premiership pennants to winning clubs, saying that the standard of cricket throughout the season had been high.
That was demonstrated by the fact that only two of the association’s 19 clubs were not represented in the finals of at least one grade.
The night concluded with the announcement that longstanding WGCA secretary Jeff Wallace would step aside at the annual general meeting in May.