By Mikayla van Loon
Chirnside Park Football Netball Club has walked away from the EFNL’s Chandler Medal evening with their heads held high after some successful wins both as a club and individually.
Division four reserves player Lachie Eagleton took home the league’s best and fairest, section five netballer Lauren Hussey also received best and fairest, while Tayla Ferguson scored the most goals and the club was awarded the Champion Club for the division.
Lachie said he hadn’t been expecting to win, thinking it would go to last year’s winner.
“I respect him as a player. He’s a really good player so I thought he was going to get the chocolates but I’m pretty happy to get the recognition from the umpires,” he said.
With just one point the difference, Lachie said this year the effort he put in during the preseason obviously had an impact.
“I feel like my footy has been pretty consistent. I’m slack on preseasons usually but I did a little bit of a preseason this year, which got my fitness up.
“I worked on my skills a little bit in the preseason too and then obviously, my coach, he gave me good midfield minutes so I got to see a fair bit of the ball.”
Although Lachie has been in the running for the BnF before, he said he has often sat in fifth or sixth position making this his first win of the medal.
Lauren had a similar reaction to winning the BnF, thinking runner up and teammate Tayla would come out on top.
“I didn’t think I was going to win to be honest and just even being invited was really good,” she said.
“When they were reading our section out, and obviously got to runners up, the first thing they said was ‘Chirnside Park’ so I was like, ‘oh, I came second’.”
Proud to be able to share in the moment with Tayla and represent Chirnside Park was something Lauren really enjoyed about the presentation evening.
The centre/wing attack player said she didn’t feel like she had that good of a season “so it was nice to have that recognition” but as a whole, the team finished second on the ladder by percentage only, making it a stellar season.
“The team did really well and I was really proud of them. I love my team. I love them to bits and I wouldn’t want to play with anyone else on a Friday night,” Lauren said.
Chirnside Park’s seniors and reserves football teams also had pretty successful seasons, with Lachie saying it was nice to see the club doing well.
“We’ve struggled most years in the ones and twos. The ones had a better season last year but the twos just struggled to make finals,” he said.
“The last time we played finals I think was 2009 or 2010, so it’s good to play some pretty decent consistent footy for the most part.”
Lauren said to see the club be so successful made for an excellent night and boosted the excitement for returning to play next year.
