2025 Michelsen Medal Preview
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GUN on-ballers are likely to lead the race for the Michelsen Medal as fairest and best in this season’s Bendigo Bank Bendigo FNL senior footy action.
The league’s night of nights will be held on Sunday from 6pm at Bendigo Club in Strathdale.
Votes for the Betty Thompson Medal, A-grade netball, and Michelsen Medal will be called and medals then presented.
Vote counts for all other grades of football and netball and other awards were announced last Monday night on Radio Fresh fm 101.5.
Recipients of those awards have been invited to Sunday night’s presentation.
On the footy front there are plenty of contenders for the Michelsen Medal.
A year ago it was Gisborne ruckman Braidon Blake and ruck-rover Brad Bernacki, and Sandhurst on-baller Lachlan Tardrew locked in a three-way tie for the medal.
It’s been another outstanding season by Tardrew who took on extra responsibility of the Dragons as co-coach with Bryce Curnow.
Sandhurst has again qualified for a third senior grand final in a row, and also has its reserves and under-18 teams to play for premiership glory.
Defeated just twice in the run to the seniors finals, Sandhurst had plenty of contributors.
Tardrew was the stand-out, but the Dragons also had Cooper Smith, Tom Campbell, Matt Wilkinson, James Coghlan, Fergus Greene and Lachie Hood win plenty of contests.
For Bernacki the focus will be firmly on Saturday’s preliminary final showdown with Eaglehawk at Queen Elizabeth Oval and winning through to a third grand final in four seasons.
Gisborne captain and key defender Jack Reaper, rover James Gray and mid/forward Dylan Johnstone could also feature prominently in the votes for the Rob Waters-coached team.
There’s plenty of contenders from Eaglehawk for the award.
Among those tipped to lead the charge for the Two Blues include captain Billy Evans and Ben Thompson.
Ruckman Brayden Frost will gain a fair share of votes, but is ineligible because of one-match suspension for rough play in the round 18 clash with Castlemaine.
The Hawks could also feature highly on the board for most votes to a team.
Those to have played well for the Borough include Charlie Langford, Jonty Neaves, Jack O’Shannessy and co-coach Clayton Holmes.
In recent seasons it’s ruckmen who have caught the attention of the umpires.
South Bendigo’s Callum Crisp was one of the most consistent players in the Bloods’ rise to the first semi-final.
Others to star for the red and white included co-coach Jack Fallon, Ron Best medallist and leading goalkicker Brock Harvey, ruck-rover Brody Haddow, and Anthony Zimmerman.
Was a superb effort by a team coached by Troy Coates, non-playing, and Jack Fallon, playing, to mark a long-awaited finals victory.
Most consistent for Strathfieldsaye Storm included Cooper Jones, Bode Stevens, Jordan and Riley Wilson, and Kya Lanfranchi in defence.
After a 1-7 start, Golden Square fought back to be four-all in the second half of the season.
The Brad Eaton-coached Bulldogs finished in sixth place.
Key players in the resurgence by the blue and gold included Jordan Rosengren, Terence Reeves, Tom Strauch, and captain Jayden Burke.
At Castlemaine the likely leaders in the vote tally for the Magpies are Kalan Huntly, Josh and Ryan Eyre.
Was a tough season for Kangaroo Flat, but two stand-outs were ruckman Angus Macpherson and captain Ethan Roberts.
They are likely to be the Roos’ highest vote-getters.
Many of the Bendigo FNL legends have earnt Michelsen Medal glory, some more than once.
A dual Brownlow medallist, AFL premiership winner and AFL Team of the Century medal, Greg ‘Diesel’ Williams starred for Golden Square before kicking on to the big league.
Williams earnt back-to-back Michelsen medal wins in 1982 and ’83.
Other Michelsen medallists to play in the VFL, now AFL, were Sandhurst’s Brian Walsh and Brendan Hartney, and Eaglehawk’s Des English.
Walsh played for Carlton and Essendon, and Hartney and English with the Blues.
Then there’s Colin Rice and Frank Coghlan who won the Michelsen Medal after stints in the VFL.
A premiership winner with Geelong in 1963, Rice won the Michelsen medal in ’68 when South Bendigo was runner-up to Eaglehawk.
Coghlan played for St Kilda from 1986 to ’92 and then won the Michelsen as a gun on-baller for Sandhurst in ’95.
Other great players to earn the Bendigo league’s top honour include Heinz Tonn at Golden Square in ’48 and Castlemaine a year later; Sandhurst’s Kevin Curran; Rochester’s Frank Fitzpatrick; and Castlemaine’s Derek Cowan.
There have also been some surprise results such as Kennington’s Rod Southon in 1988.
Two years later and it was Kangaroo Flat’s Damien Saunders who was number one.
All these years later and it’s Damien’s son, Fr Jackson Saunders who is often calling the action or boundary rider for the Radio Fresh fm 101.5 commentary team.
Another father-son combination of Derrick and Brodie Filo hold the unique honour as Michelsen medallists.
Derrick did so with Castlemaine in 1991, and Brodie in 2015.
In ’72 and ’75 it was Tony ‘Bluey’ Southcombe who reigned supreme in the ruck for Golden Square and led the medal tally.
Two Michelsen medals also sit alongside the premiership medals he won with the Bulldogs and later at Northern United.
Southcombe’s record of eight premiership wins includes five as playing coach, two with the Bulldogs, and three at the Swallow.
Dual winners of the Michelsen medal include Gisborne rover Matt Fitzgerald, 2003 and ’07, and Sandhurst ruckman Tim Martin in 2013 and ’14.
Winners in recent years such as Strathfieldsaye’s Lachlan Sharp, ’17; Jack Geary, ’18; and Adam Baird, ’19, are still starring, but in different leagues.
Sharp was coach in Bridgewater’s run to the Loddon Valley grand final against Marong last Saturday.
Geary was playing coach as Cohuna Kangas bowed out in last Saturday’s first semi-final in the Central Murray competition.
Baird will grace Huntly’s Strauch Reserve on Saturday as playing co-coach for Mount Pleasant in the Heathcote DFNL grand final clash with North Bendigo.
