Tara Murray
Altona rising star Cooper Burns continues to make his mark on the hockey field sharing Hockey Victoria’s top men’s award for the winter season.
Burns along with Camberwell’s James Webster both polled 28 votes at the Hockey Victoria awards night to be crowned the winners of the Fin McNab Award, the premier league best and fairest award.
Burns also won the Colin Batch Medal as the leading goal scorer in the premier league competition, with 35 goals.
The youngster said it was pretty special to claim both awards.
“I only thought I was invited to the night as I was getting the goal scoring award,” he said. “It’s good to get another award.
“I felt like I had a pretty influential year for Altona and I feel like the group got to where we wanted to go and make a preliminary final.
“We’re now looking to make that next step and make a grand final.”
Burns said it was an incredible end to the season for the side, which won two penalty shoot outs to make the preliminary final.
He said not many people would have predicted them to win both.
“There was so much belief in the group.”
Personally, Burns thought that he had a good season.
“I thought I played my role for the team,” he said. “My teammates had a lot of trust in me.
“It has been good and it’s made me step up and take on more of a leadership role and push others around me to get the standard that we want at Altona.”
While the season is over for Burns, he still has a couple of busy months in front of him.
Burns and Altona teammate Connar Otterbach are both part of the under-21 Australian team.
The team will compete in three upcoming events that includes a two-match series against Hockey One League side Canberra Chill in October, the Sultan of Johor Cup in Malaysia in October and the Junior World Cup Qualifier in December.
Burns said he was looking forward to that.
Burns has also been picked in the HC Melbourne squad for the Hockey One League, the top competition in Australia.
“There’s about 20 players in the squad,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll get a few games and get to play week in, week out and see how it goes.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this competition.”
