Ruckman Ryley Ferguson won Rochester’s senior football best-and-fairest on Friday night.
There’s a new holder of Rochester’s football best-and-fairest.
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Midfielder Mitch Trewhella owned the previous two seasons, but was narrowly beaten to a three-peat on presentation night by a newcomer.
In a nice vindication of recruitment, off-season addition Ryley Ferguson capped a sensational first year in Tigers colours with the top honour.
“He’s a very good ruckman, but he turns into a ruck rover once the ball hits the ground,” Rochester committee member Warren Martin said.
“It’s a bit like Brodie Grundy and those types that just hunt the ball when they hit the ground.”
Well, that’s high praise.
But Ferguson has undoubtedly earned such comparisons.
A 14-time feature in Rochy’s best, 15 Morrison Medal votes and being among the league’s top contested markers is why.
Martin said Ferguson only just pipped Trewhella, who had another superb year despite early challenges.
“Mitch is fantastic,” Martin said.
“He played footy in Darwin over the summer, so he probably came back a little bit tired, if you wanted to be really critical in analysing him.
“He perhaps took a little longer to hit his straps, which might have cost him in the end.”
It’s fair enough when hearing Trewhella had at one stage played 45 games in 54 weeks.
But how much was the midfielder’s season truly impacted anyway?
He was still a ball magnet with the ninth most disposals, sixth most contested possessions and 10th most clearances competition-wide and an impressive physical output with the second most tackles laid.
While we didn’t see a three-peat in football, we did in netball.
Anyone who watched the Tigers’ A-graders this year would not have been shocked to see Tia Webb win again.
With a whopping 540 goals, the fifth-most in the competition, and the model of consistency in a side lacking it, there wasn’t really any other choice.
A-grade netball best-and-fairest runner-up Charlee Roulston and winner Tia Webb.
Coming in second for the Quinlan Family Medal was mid-courter Charlee Roulston, who clearly has a massive fan in Martin.
“Charlee’s a little pocket rocket,” he said.
“What you see is what you get with Charlee, there's no grey area.
“She's just flat out all the time.”
Although the individual praise is nice to hear, there’s no doubt Webb and Roulston will want to be part of more wins in 2027.
Rochy was nowhere near a finals spot with a 3-15 record, but Martin said the club was confident it would add “a couple of big names” to the A-grade ranks this off-season.
And what about new football coach Marty Hore? How a side recruits after going from a grand final appearance to no finals at all is sure to be interesting.
Martin couldn’t say too much, but hinted at a change in approach.
“Marty's working his backside off,” he said.
“He’s got a lot of connections, so he's speaking to a lot of people.
“He’s put programs out for most of the boys and is really keen to develop the young fellas coming out of the thirds and so forth.
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