COHUNA’S Joel Helman has capped off an extraordinary 2024 season, the dynamic midfielder winning this year’s LJ Hooker Player of the Year award.
Helman won the award by polling 18 votes, finishing three votes clear of Tooleybuc-Manangatang ruckman Connor Mcdonald.
Kerang’s Josh Nitschke and Sean Hunter finished on 14 votes, just ahead of Balranald’s Kobe Lloyd and Nyah-Nyah West United full-forward Brandyn Grenfell with 13 votes.
The win caps off an impressive individual season from Helman, who earlier this week won his second Jack Betts Medal as the Central Murray’s best and fairest player in a three-way tie alongside Mcdonald and Mallee Eagles co-coach Harry Allen.
The LJ Hooker Player of the Year award is voted on by The Guardian football writers at each home-and-away match on a 3, 2, 1 basis throughout the season.
After a slow start to the season, Helman finished like a freight train, polling 10 votes over the final seven rounds of the season and in every one of his final six games.
It was the midfielder’s consistency, along with his attacking flair, which earned him his first LJ Hooker award, with Helman honoured to finally add his name to a long list of illustrious past winners.
“It is a truly great honour to win this year’s LJ Hooker Player of the Year award,” Helman said.
“It’s a highly sought-after award and one that I’ve never actually won before.
“Some of the very elite players have won it in the past and to join them now as a winner is a real honour.”
The longstanding award has an impressive honour roll, with Matthew Wade and Jye Barry the most recent recipients.
LJ Hooker senior property manager Alistair Ward congratulated the Kangas champion on joining the illustrious group.
“Joel has had a fantastic year and that’s been backed up by him also being the joint winner of the Jack Betts Medal, which goes to show that the LJ Hooker Player of the Year award is prestigious as well, because the cream always rises to the top,” Ward said.
“We know that Joel has been a great player for a long time, having been a dual Jack Betts Medallist, and he’s one of the most well regarded players throughout our league.
“He’s strong, he’s dedicated and very fit – those are the characteristics that stand out and make him the player that he is.
“He’s hard at the contest, has clean disposal and is well revered across the league.
“To win the LJ Hooker Player of the Year award and the Jack Betts Medal in the same season just goes to show how great of a season he has actually had.”
Although Helman will be watching tomorrow’s grand final with envy, he is also hopeful that the second half of Cohuna’s 2024 campaign, when they finished with eight successive victories before bowing out in a devastating elimination final defeat to Balranald, will hold them in good stead ahead of next season.
“Hopefully we can build on the finish to our season,” Helman said.
“We started playing some really good football at the back end of the year and if we can continue like that then I feel we’ll be in good shape next year.
“Halfway through the year we were sitting bottom four and we were looking like we were going to finish there, but once we started getting on a roll everyone started to believe.
“To win eight games in a row was massive for us.
“Unfortunately, losing the (elimination) final wasn’t the way we thought we’d finish but it will be just another stepping stone for next year, I suppose, and that loss will make us even hungrier.”
While their elimination final loss still burns, Helman said he was already looking ahead to next season, with one dream still left unfulfilled for the 29-year-old – for now.
“I was going to retire at the start of this year and every year I say this is my last year, but I’ll be back again now after this,” Helman said.
“At the moment I’m on the Kangas bandwagon.
“I want the club to do well and finally break the drought of winning a premiership in the Central Murray.
“I’d trade everything in for a premiership medal and I look at the Kerang boys envious of what they’ve achieved.
“I’d die to just win one of them at Cohuna.
“I nearly went to Bendigo this year to play footy and I could have potentially played in a premiership team, but it wouldn’t have meant anywhere near as much as winning one here (at Cohuna).
“I would have been gutted if I’d gone to a Bendigo team and won a flag, but Cohuna won a flag also.
“It just means so much more for me to win one at Cohuna than anywhere else.”
