“I was really shocked to hear the news that I had won the award,” she told The Free Press.
“I felt very honoured for such a great recognition in what has been a fantastic year of netball with Howlong. It was a good end to 2021.
“Unfortunately, Hume League Finals campaign was cancelled due to COVID but we move on, the league did its best to finish the 18 rounds on the draw. From here, I will take 2022 off, get my ACL repaired and be all guns blazing for 2023.”
Year 2021 began so well with 14 undefeated rounds for Alannah’s team with her playing the best netball of her career but in Round 15 against Osborne she had fully ruptured her ACL. Through her strong will and competitive streak, Alannah continued to keep playing netball, despite the pain, for the remainder of the season.
“Howlong B Grade finished 2021 as the benchmark, so a grand final appearance was more than promising - an opportunity I wasn’t missing again (she did the same knee previously),” Alannah said. “Ruptured ACL or not, I was giving it a red-hot crack at the premiership we missed out on in 2019.”
In 2019, Howlong B Grade was on top all season and unfortunately 11 minutes into the first quarter Alannah partially tore her ACL. “We unfortunately lost the GF. It will forever haunt me. Through extensive physio in 2020 (Covid) I was able to commit to 2021 with full confidence that I could give 100 per cent without my knee letting me down. In 2018 we were premiers defeating Rand Walbundrie Walla Giants.”
Alannah has a long list of club best and fairests, as a defender and, since starting at Howlong seven years ago, goal attack. She grew up around netball.
“When I was young, my mum (Janet) played an integral part of community netball. She took my twin sister and I to several games and taught us that team sports teach many lessons and values in life.”
Tragically, in 1998 when Alannah was just eight years-of-age, her mum passed away due to a Brain Aneurism.
“It meant that my dad (John), who is the strongest man I know, had to take over the reins,” Alannah said.
“Being left unexpectedly to raise two eight-year-old twin girls (she and twin Brianne) and a 17-year-old daughter (Tammy) was never going to be an easy task. He passed with flying colours. He sacrificed every opportunity to travel the countryside every weekend for us to play netball and do what we love best - exactly what we lived for and in my mum’s honour.”
The night of Alannah being named best and fairest happened to be her mum’s death anniversary of 23 years. “My dad is the catalyst of my great success in my netball career,” the bar and gaming manager at Howlong Golf Resort said.
“My sister and I started as ‘bees to a honeypot’ and makes him proud how far I have come.”
Alannah’s top league individual award started in 2004 with the Hume League Intermediates Best and Fairest, followed by 2010’s Farrer League A Grade Best and Fairest. In 2016, she was Hume League B Grade Runner/Up Best and Fairest.
For 2021, Alannah won the league’s top individual with 24 votes, with Brooklyn Moloney from Billabong Crows in second position. Other 2021 Howlong winners were C Grade Brittany Wright, C Reserve Gemma Boswell and Under 17s Football Baxter Hamilton.
