.Follow Grandstand's live coverage of rugby league's 2012 Dally M Awards.
Awards include Player, Full-back, Winger, Centre, Five-eighth, Half-back, Lock, Second rower, Prop, Hooker, Captain, Rookie, Coach, Headline Moment and Rep player of the year.
The Provan-Summons Medal is also awarded for the public's choice of player of the year.
Dally M Players of the Year since 2000:
9.45pm: Time to look away for Blues' fans, as a Queensland Origin montage comes on screen.
9.43pm: Rep player of the year is up next. Nominees include Nate Myles, Robbie Farah, Greg Inglis and Johnathan Thurston. Surprisingly no place for Paul Gallen, and also surprisingly, the award goes to Nate Myles.
9.40pm: The next award is not for a player, but for the Headline Moment of the year. Nominees include Ben Barba's stunning length of the field try against Melbourne and the Greg Inglis "try" in Origin I, and the winner is ... Barba again. It's getting a bit like Oscars night, when the favourite starts to sweep the board. A humble Barba says he thinks there were some other tries which involved his team-mates which were better than the award-winner.
9.34pm: Another award for the Bulldogs as Josh Morris takes out the Centre of the year gong.
9.32pm: Darren Lockyer comes on stage to announce Captain of the year. It's a Melbourne Cup field, but the award goes to Manly duo Jamie Lyon and Jason King.
9.30pm: Next up is Winger of the year, as Newcastle's try-scoring machine Akuila Uate gets the award.
9.28pm: Normal service is resumed with another award for the Bulldogs, as David Klemmer takes out the award for Under-20s player of the year.
9.23pm: Everyone can draw breath with a very short break after another montage, and one suspects there could be a few more awards coming up before the next votes.
9.19pm: More votes for Barba in round 20, with two for the Bulldog and three for Matt Bowen from the Cowboys. Barba on 23 points, Bowen on 22.
9.16pm: Round 19 votes come next, and there's a familiar ring to them, with Barba gaining two votes from the Bulldogs seventh straight win of the year. Top four: Barba 21, Bowen 19, Cronk 19, Thurston 19.
9.14pm: Back to the awards, and it's Hooker of the Year award time. The nominees are Robbie Farah, Michael Ennis, Isaac Luke and Cameron Smith, and it's the Melbourne number nine who takes the award.
9.12pm: Round 18 gives Ben Barba three points from the Bulldogs' win over the Tigers. Now it's a three-way tie on 19 with Barba, Bowen and Cronk.
9.10pm: The count starts with round 17, and only one player in the top 10 gets points. Matt Bowen from the Cowboys gets two points, to draw level with Cooper Cronk on 19 points.
9.08pm: After a speech by acting NRL chief executive Shane Mattiske, who thanks everyone from the broadcasters to the clubs, players, referees and fans, it's back with the Dally M Medal. A point to remember, if a player is suspended, each game out incurs a three-point deduction, and two suspensions makes a player ineligible for the main award.
9.01pm: Second rower of the year is Nate Myles of the Gold Coast. Oddest question of the night - "Do you cry at romantic movies?" - No surprise the answer is no.
8.58pm: The Provan-Summons Medal nominees are Ben Barba, Greg Inglis, Nathan Merrett and Josh Morris ... and it's Barba. "It's a real honour to receive this award from two legends of the game," he says.
8.56pm: A quick break from the awards with a chat to legendary duo Norm Provan and Arthur Summons. They are in fiery form, replying "none" when asked which players from the modern game could recreate their famous pose.
8.53pm: Cronulla's Paul Gallen is quickly called to the stage as the winner of the Lock of the Year award. Gallen has been inspiring for the Sharks and for New South Wales in Origin.
8.52pm: They are ripping through these awards, next up is Rookie of the Year, presented by Parramatta's Nathan Hindmarsh. This time it's the Rabbitohs who take home the award, with Adam Reynolds getting the nod. Reynolds has proven to be a match-winner for Souths this year, and again this is not a big surprise.
8.49pm: We're straight into the first positional award, and could this be the start of a Bulldogs' sweep? Sam Kasiano wins Prop of the Year.
8.46pm: First up is Coach of the Year, to be announced by former Souths' coach George Piggins. George makes a crack about liking the paypackets of the coaches of today, then reads out the nominees, and the winner is Des Hasler from the Bulldogs. That isn't much of a surprise, given Hasler took the Dogs to the minor premiership, but it may give some more heartburn to Manly fans. He says his new club has been incredibly patient - will they be willing to wait for a premiership?
8.40pm: Another musical montage of highlights - maybe it's just me, but it seems pretty focused on the full-backs and half-backs and not too many of the forwards' fraternity.
8.37pm: Guy Sebastian gets things under way at the Dally M's with an uptempo number which gets overlaid with some action from season 2012. Don't worry, the votes will start coming in shortly ...
8.31pm: One of the awards to watch out for will be Full-back of the Year, with Barba in the mix along with Melbourne's Billy Slater, South's Greg Inglis and Manly's Brett Stewart among the chances.
8.23pm: What we can say for certain is who was leading with 10 rounds remaining when the votes stopped being made public. Barba was on 16 points, three behind the leader, Melbourne half-back Cooper Cronk. Next came North Queensland's Johnathan Thurston and Matt Bowen. Level with Barba was Souths' superstar Greg Inglis, and Brisbane's Peter Wallace.
8.06pm: If Bulldogs supporters are superstitious, they may be quietly hoping for an upset, since only four winners of the Dally M Medal for player of the year have gone on to play in a premiership-winning team the same season. The last person to buck the trend was Manly's Matt Orford in 2008, who captained the Sea Eagles to a Grand Final win.
8.00pm: Welcome to ABC Grandstand's coverage of the 2012 Dally M Awards. I'm Andrew McGarry, and I will be taking you through rugby league's night of nights from the Sydney Town Hall. There are a string of awards to be handed out tonight, but the main focus is on the Dally M player of the year award, which many seem to think will be hanging around the neck of Bulldogs' full-back Ben Barba in a couple of hours' time.
Tags: sport, rugby-league, nrl, australia, nsw, sydney-2000 First posted September 04, 2012 20:00:04
No comments:
Post a Comment