Tongala best and fairest Alex Williams (centre), with runner-up Jordan Souter and the club's rising star winner Hudson Kellett.
Tongala key defender Alex Williams’ first full post-COVID season of football was rewarded with the club’s senior best and fairest award at its vote count on Thursday evening.
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Ironically it was a late season injury that allowed Williams to break a 16-round deadlock in the count with two-time winner and former coach Jordan Souter.
Williams played his first senior game for the Blues 10 years ago, having come through the Tongala under-age ranks.
The 28-year-old plumber turned Shepparton-based TAFE teacher is the grandson of 1961 premiership player Barry Campbell and finished fifth in the 2018 count.
He missed most of 2023 with an ACL injury, having broken his ankle in 2017 and missed most of the season. He also has broken his wrist and suffered a less serious knee injury several seasons ago.
As for his move from forward to back he said “most defenders are failed forwards”.
“I see the play unfolding a lot better down back and I try to find the balance between attack and defence,” he said.
“I’ve missed my fair share of footy, but this year was the first year in 10 seasons of senior footy that I’ve played all 18 home and away games.”
Tongala’s 2024 senior best and fairest winner Alex Williams
Photo by
Aidan Briggs
Williams played only seven senior games in those first two seasons before becoming a regular in the team as a goalkicker in 2016 (27 goals from 11 games).
During the COVID shortened season of 2021 he, like so many of his Tongala teammates, travelled north and spent the season playing with Nightcliff in the NTFL’s division one competition.
Williams said that Darwin season was a major reason for his improvement in recent seasons.
Jordan Souter missed only two games for the season, the last two, when he and Williams were on 102 votes apiece.
With 15 votes in those two rounds Williams won his first club champion title ahead of Souter and another player, captain Kyle Fitzgerald, who had spent most of the season on the sidelines through injury.
Fitzgerald was equal on 46 votes with Williams after nine rounds, four behind early count leader Sam Cipriani, but the ruckman missed the next eight games.
Fitzgerald finished the season strongly and eventually finished third in the count (on 80 votes) ahead of Cipriani on 71 and Gugliotti on 58.
After the premiership-bound Blues were forced, along with the rest of the state, to sit out the 2020 season Williams and his team played a dozen games of Murray league football in 2021.
The next two years saw him sidelined for all but six games in 2022 and the first 11 weeks of 2023.
He played only the first six games of 2022 before sitting on the sidelines with a knee injury from early-May 2022 until mid-June 2023.
Life member Souter with fellow 200 gamers Jayden Tucker and Mark Watson.
Williams finished that season alongside Souter in the reserve grade team after the former coach had also spent the first nine weeks of the season on the sidelines.
Souter, who won the title in 2009, 2013 and 2014 (and has a swag of runners-up titles to his credit), won his first senior best and fairest as a 17-year-old.
His father, former GVL games record holder Mick, won three successive best and fairest titles between 1977-79 before becoming one of country Victoria’s most renowned goalkickers.
Souter Jnr said Williams intercept marking across half back and his long kicking from defence made him a worthy winner.
“I’ve loved watching him develop his game and grow confidence in his body. He is a good leader at the club now,” Souter said.
Votes were cast on a five through to one basis, with three cards handed out on a weekly basis. Both Souter and Williams polled one perfect game, five votes on all three cards.
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