The Batemans Bay Seahawks have scooped the pool at the 2023 AFL Canberra Awards Night.
As well as taking out this year’s Division One Premiership with a blistering 72-28 defeat of ANU in the ACT on Saturday, the Seahawks Men’s Senior side took home three awards at the competition’s night of nights with the Women’s team brining home two.
Michael Thane who was named best on ground in that grand final performance which also happened to be his 100th game for the club, was named the AFL Canberra Division One Men’s Best and Fairest on Wednesday night.
“It’s been a great week and to win the B & F is pretty flattering,” Thane told East Coast Radio.
“I’ve put in a lot of training over the last few years but I’ve also got a lot of good coaches down at the Bay.”
One of those coaches is Michael Kenny, who was awarded AFL Canberra Division One Men’s Coach of the Year for the third season in a row.
Seahawk Brett Garland recorded the most goals of anyone in AFL Canberra this season, with 50 majors.
The Seahawks Senior Women’s team also returned to the South Coast with some silverware after a fantastic season that the ended with them taking out the minor premiership and just falling short in Saturday’s grand final against Googong.
Sophie Alves was awarded AFL Canberra Division One Women’s Best and Fairest after a stellar season.
Alves also won the Leading Goal Kicker award for the third successive year as well.
“The women’s team were very unlucky to lose their grand final, they’ve got a lot of talented players like Sophie, so I’m sure they’ll bounce back and be even stronger next year,” Thane said.
Reflecting on the Men’s 2023 grand final win, the 24-year-old midfielder described the road to the premiership as been a long one for the club.
“After the club won the flag in 2018, since then we’ve been through a lot,” Thane said.
“2019 we lost in a preliminary final, then we had the bushfires, got kicked out of the comp in 2020 because of COVID, 2021 we couldn’t play finals because of COVID, and last year we finished on top but lost in a prelim,” he said.
“So it’s beena long hard five years but that makes winning it this year a lot sweeter.”
“We’re still pretty young, and I’ll be back at the Bay again next year to try and do it again, so supporters get around us and hopefully we can do it again nin 2024.”
Images: Batemans Bay Seahawks
