World Footy News

Perennial champions, the University Blues, faced off against the ever improving Waitakere Magpies who are yet to achieve a flag since their formation in 1990.

The Blues, Premiers in the past decade 7 times (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007) had steam-rolled their way into the finals with a crashing win by 112 points over bottom of the table Takapuna Eagles in Round 10 before smashing usually tough competitors, the Mt Roskill Saints, by 181 points in the Second Semi Final to go straight through to the big one.

Waitakere Magpies on the other hand finished third after the regular season before accounting for the North Shore Tigers by 37 points in the First Semi Final. They then had to meet what must have been a shell shocked Mt Roskill team in the Preliminary Final coming off an absolute shellacking from the Uni Blues. Mt Roskill rallied to make a game of it going down to the vastly improved Waitakere Magpies who earnt the chance to challenge for their first AAFL Premiership.

In ideal weather conditions and before a good crowd of approx 500 spectators the Seniors Grand Final saw the University Blues prove too strong for the Waitakere Magpies. The Blues came out firing with a sensational 9 goals straight to lead by 40 at the end of first quarter!! To their credit the Magpies fought back courageously in the 2nd and 3rd quarters to make a game of it but the damage was done and in the final quarter the Blues ran away to win very convincingly. Damien McDowell’s outstanding game for University resulted in his winning the Wells Medal for best player on ground.

Premiers in Seniors Grand Final – AAFL Premiership Shield
University Blues 23.11 (149) def Waitakere Magpies 7.12 (54)

The other game of the day was the Reserve Grade Grand Final playing for the McKay Rogers Shield which is named after two of the AAFL’s greatest contributors Barry Rogers (North Shore Tigers) and Ken McKay (Manurewa Raiders). The result there saw the North Shore Tigers 4.10 (34) def University Blues 4.5 (29) with the AAFL Medal for best on ground going to Michael Halliday (North Shore Tigers).

This match was very entertaining and a closely fought game between 2 evenly matched old foes that went right to the wire. North Shore Tigers came out narrowly on top of a gallant University Blues team to win in 2009.

At the recent AAFL Best and Fairest Dinner the award recipients were:-

Best 1st Year player- Rodger White (Manurewa)

Best & Fairest Under 17 Award- Vandyn Hartman (Manurewa)

Best & Fairest Reserve Grade Award- Brad Martin (University)

Dr Terry Gay Award for Goalkicker of the year
Matt Hacket (Waitakere) 48 Goals
Runner up Thomas Taungakava (University) 42 Goals

McKenzie Medal for AAFL Rep Player of the year-
Andrew Marsden (Waitakere)

Terry Carroll Volunteer of the Year Award-Keith Sharp (Manurewa)

Umpire of the year- Rob Greenwood

Coach of the Year- Andrew Congalton (Takapuna)

AAFL Senior Best & Fairest Player of the Year- Lewis Hurst (Mt Roskill) with James Monoghan (University) as Runner Up.