Third Syd Barker Medal for Boomer

NEWLY ANNOINTED Syd Barker Medallist Brent Harvey said he was confident he could improve on his 2007 as he and his team look to build on this year’s third placing.

The star midfielder, who picked up his third club best and fairest award on Friday night, said that although he would be turning 30 next year, he would be looking to take his game to another level in 2008.

“Looking back on this year, I was pretty happy with my consistency but there were a few flat spots in there, especially later in the year,” Harvey toldkangaroos.com.au just moments after accepting his award in front of 1000 fans at Flemington Racecourse.

“I’m reasonably happy with my season but I know that I’ve got a lot of footy ahead of me.

“The way my body is feeling, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be looking to improve and that’s what we should all be aiming for next year if we want to do better at the business end of the year.”

Harvey nominated his round-eight game against Carlton at Carrara as his best for the year, a performance that saw him collect 32 possessions and kick three goals.

That match also has special meaning for him because he was able to perform in what was close friend Adam Simpson’s 250^th game.

“You always try to lift for those milestone games so it really pleasing to get a few kicks in Simmo’s 250^th.

“It was a pretty good game of footy that night, too, so I was pretty pumped to get a couple of touches and play well for the skipper.”

It was also that 17-point win over Carlton that Harvey believes gave his team the confidence to roll their way to a September berth after the Roos had started their season with three straight losses.

“It’s been said a million times, but we knew that we were better than our 0-3 win-loss ratio showed at the start of the year.

“But because we still hadn’t won a game those sorts of doubts start to creep in that no matter what we do, we might not be able to crack it for a win.

“I remember Simmo saying before the Brisbane game [in round four] that if we didn’t win that one it was going to be a long, cold winter.

“But we won that, and then we put a few more on the board and by the time we beat Carlton I remember thing, ‘Gee, we’re five [wins] and three [losses] here. We might do something special this year’.

“In the end we got ourselves the double chance after the home and away so we probably did even better than I thought we might after those few wins.”

Far from being satisfied with their somewhat surprising effort to make it into the penultimate week of the season, Harvey said his young teammates needed to attack their pre-season with the same determination that enabled the club to dig its way out of its early season hole.

“I know personally that I can’t wait to start pre-season training and I’m pretty sure a lot of the other guys are feeling the same way and that’s the way it should be.

“We had so many guys have their best ever years – Hamish McIntosh, Josh Gibson, Michael Firrito – but they just have to keep wanting to get better.

“We’ve got a really talented group together who have experienced the highs of winning that final against Hawthorn and the lows of those two big finals losses so there shouldn’t be any problem motivating the guys for next year.

“As I said, I can’t wait to start training, and I can’t wait to see how far we can go with a group that I think is pretty exciting.”

Harvey became the seventh player to win three or more Syd Barker Medals joining club legends Teasdale, Foote, Aylett, Carey, Dench and Larkin in achieving the feat.

His 2007 triumph follows on from his 2003 and 2005 Syd Barker victories and caps a memorable season which saw him finish runner-up in the Brownlow Medal as well as receiving his third All-Australian honour.

The 47th pick in the 1995 National Draft kicked a career season high 36 goals this year as well as playing all 25 games taking his career tally to 241 games.  

The 1999 premiership player has a glittering array of individual awards from a sensational career thus far including the 2003 Jim Stynes Medal while representing Australia against Ireland, as well as the 1999 EJ Whitten Medal when he kicked five goals on debut for Victoria.

In an extremely tight count, Harvey was locked in battle with captain Adam Simpson for most of the evening with the pint-sized rover holding a seven-vote lead after the club’s season finale. It was Simpson’s sixth top three placing of his career.

Consistent defender Daniel Pratt came with a late run to finish third, just edging out ruck revelation Hamish McIntosh, the ultra consistent duo of Drew Petrie and dual Syd Barker Medallist Brady Rawlings. Amazingly just seven votes separated third to sixth.

Daniel Harris, Jess Sinclair and Shannon Grant (who was also awarded life membership) once again had top-10 finishes, while Michael Firrito (eighth) had his first top-10 finish of his career.

Syd Barker Voting 2007
1. Brent Harvey - 783
2. Adam Simpson - 776
3. Daniel Pratt - 746
4. Hamish McIntosh - 742
5. Drew Petrie - 740
6. Brady Rawlings - 739
7. Daniel Harris - 717
8. Michael Firrito - 690
9. Jess Sinclair - 667
10. Shannon Grant - 658

2007 Award Winners
Syd Barker Medal: Brent Harvey
Best Clubman: Drew Petrie
Trainers Award: Scott McMahon
Northerners Award: Daniel Pratt
Jason McCartney Jumper: Daniel Pratt
Vice-Presidents’ Rookie of the Year: Jesse Smith
Cheer Squad Award: Brent Harvey
Awarded Life Membership:
Shannon Grant and Shannon Watt - 10 years service.
John King – Head or Assistant Trainer for 23 years.

Multiple Syd Barker Medallists

4 –       Noel Teasdale (1963-66)

            David Dench (1971, 76-77, 81)

Wayne Carey (1992-93, 96, 98).

3 –       Les Foote (1945, 49-50)

Allen Aylett (1958-60)

Matthew Larkin (1985, 87-88)

Brent Harvey (2003, 05, 07).

2007 voting structure

The five Match Committee members graded each of the 22 players out of 10 for each match. These votes were then added together and made the player’s total number of votes for each round. Therefore 50 votes was the maximum a player could receive in one match.