The 2022 Touch Football Tasmania Awards were presented on Saturday night, rounding out a successful year for the sport in the state.
In a tight field the Junior Representative Player of the Year went to Sam Free, from Southern Touch, ahead of wonderful performances from Harvey Hurd, Heidi D'Monte, Ava Jones, Zavier Wootton and many others. Sam caught the eye of independent assessors at National Youth Championships in September, and had a strong debut at National Touch League in May.
The Representative Player of the Year was awarded to Sheldon Smith, who topped out a year where he took home the Players' Player award at National Touch League, and the Player of the Final at last year's State Cup.
The Representative Team of the Year was a difficult choice, made more so by some of the team performances on the national stage, but was awarded to the Boys' Under 14 team from NYC. Collecting the award on behalf of the team were players Lloyd Hurd and Logan Groves. Special note was made at the presentations of the results achieved by some of the other teams, particularly the Women's Over 27 team that made the semi-finals at NTL, and the Girls' 16s and 18s teams from NYC.
The Coach of the Year was awarded to Brent Mills, who in his acceptance speech made mention of previous Coach of the Year Anthony Bransden and the work that has been done developing the group of players Brent coached this year. All the coaches in our program this year did a wonderful job, particularly Toby Burgess, Anthony Bransden and James Edmunds.
The Referee of the Year was an easy choice. Kodey Prendergast received an upgrade to level 4, and represented the state at National Youth Championships and a round of VT-League, and attended every day but one of the 2022 School Series.
The Volunteer of the Year went to July recipient of the Bristol Paints Volunteer of the Month James Dowling. He coaches, he referees, he runs his own club, he delivers training in schools; James is one of many in our sport who contribute over and above for the love of the game.
As well as these awards, and renewed recognition for our team award recipients from NTL and NYC, Life Membership awards were presented to Andy Smith and Brent Mills, both from Southern Touch, for their lifetime of service to the sport in Tasmania. The awards were dated 2020, but weren't able to be presented at the time.
