Katie takes out club best and fairest award

By Stuart Teather
AFTER tying for the Victorian Women’s Football League (VWFL) South-East division’s best-and-fairest award recently, it came as little surprise that Katie Loynes took out Berwick’s best-and-fairest award at the club’s awards night.
The gun midfielder won the club award ahead of Alli Wartnaby in second and Georgia Harris in third.
While Loynes’ stunning season has been well documented, Berwick coach Leeann Gill said Wartnaby was another success story.
“She’s one of the older members of the team … this is her first year of playing actual football,” she said.
“She had 10 years in the navy, so she’s very strict, you know she comes to training to train, she’s very serious about improving her football.
“Towards the end of the year, you’d have to say she was a standout player.
“We didn’t have any tall people, so she was actually our ruck … she’s not all that tall, she’s not the youngest person in the team, but you gave her a job and she’d do it.”
Gill gave Sarah Dalton the coaches’ award, and said it was because of the commitment she showed to the team.
Dalton made the monster drive up the Princes Highway from her home in Morwell twice a week to training, as well as for every game.
In other news, the club has gained the VWFL’s approval to play in the Premier Division next season, after a dominant year in the South-East division.
“We are realistic about it, we’re not saying we’re going in there and we’re going to beat Darebin in our first year,” Gill said.
“But we’ve got a lot of youth players coming through, and if we can be competitive next year, we can continue to get stronger.”
The move to the top division means the club also has to field a reserve side, and Gill made a plea for more players.
“We need to get the word out there that we need more players,” she said. “We’re about one-and-a-half teams at the moment, and as I found out with the girls you need a few extra, and the difference between coaching boys and girls is if there’s a wedding on, the boys will miss the wedding, whereas the girls will miss the footy.”