Awards night with a difference
Stirling County’s FOSROC Super6 squad held their first-ever awards night recently - from the comfort of their own homes.
The “awards ceremony” was on a Zoom call and each of the players and guests had to arrange a three-course meal for themselves.
Awards were presented in between courses and the players went off into different “rooms” for their courses so they could catch up with each other at different times.
Honours went to Landon Hayes for Try of the Season v Watsonians in January; Man of Steel - Connor Gordon, who was top tackler, averaging 21 per match; Young Player - 20 year-old prop Murphy Walker who played four full 80-minute matches; Most Valuable Player - Dean Taylor-Menzies, who started nine out of 10 matches, was top ball carrier with 11 per match and showed his versatility in playing across the back row, used as a lineout option and as a ball carrier off the line out. Dean also took the Players’ Player of the Year with 50 per cent of the vote.
The top honour of Club Man of the Year went to George Arnott. The award criteria was “for outstanding contribution across all areas (on and off field)”.
Selected by a panel of both players and coaches, head coach Ben Cairns said: “George richly deserves to be the first recipient of this prestigious award. He has worked tirelessly throughout the season with high engagement across all areas. He had an excellent season.
“He missed the start of the season through injury and took time to get back into the side, competing for a place in a formidable back row. However, he grew as the season progressed and was our best player in the final two rounds of the season.
“Living in Dundee, George has amassed over 9500 travel miles which highlights his dedication to the group.”
Looking ahead to next season, Cairns added: “Clearly the first part of this is having clarity on what our season may look like after the disruption caused by Covid.
“We were disappointed with results in season one of the FOSROC Super6 but feel we learned a lot about the competition and about ourselves. We will be making some changes to the personnel of the squad and this along with the learnings from season one should stand us in good stead to challenge.
“The starting goal as always will be to make the playoffs, thereafter, we are not going to be there to make up the numbers.”