Saturday 6 June 2009
Promising
defender Shaun Tapp confirmed his reputation as one of the best backmen
in the QAFL by winning the Sam Gilbert Medal in Melbourne today.
Tapp,
20, dominated the Victorian Amateur Under 21s to win the medal named in
honour of a man who has gone on to become a star with St Kilda in the
AFL after impressing on the same stage as Tapp.
"I'm stoked to get it - I didn’t expect it," Tapp said of his medal win.
"It could have gone to any of the back six or some of the onballers, they were all great."
Tapp
was one of the last men cut from the State open team to play Tasmania
tomorrow after enduring an interrupted build-up to the 2009 Velocity
Sports Cup season.
He
made his State debut at the age of 19 last year in the lightning fast
match with WA in Townsville, where he admittedly struggled.
"It definitely was a massive step-up and I probably wasn’t ready last year," Tapp said.
"It was a good experience though for this game.”
The Queensland Under 21s won by 36 points, keeping the home side to just six goals.
Tapp took a number of strong contested marks and destroyed everything else that came his way.
He teamed superbly with the players around him and was full of praise for them.
"The back six were all awesome - every man did his job," Tapp said.
"We
didn’t have a really big preparation together before the game, but the
captain Brett Connell got us together at the start and we went from
there."
Queensland opened an early four-goal lead and the Victorians never threatened to get closer than that.
"It felt like we had it over them out there for most of the day," Tapp admitted.
"They came back a little bit mainly through our errors."
As a proud Queenslander, he was delighted to taste victory in what was a particularly hard-fought encounter after halftime.
"It's an unreal feeling," he said.
Tapp
started the season slowly after being dogged by an Achilles problem all
summer and not even starting training until Round 2.
"It was a slow off-season and it took me a while to get my match fitness," he said.
Tapp
was used as a forward with an occasional stint on the ball in his first
three games, but has been in Aspley's best four players each week since
then at centre-half-back.
Last Modified on 11/06/2009 10:50