Honors for Club legends at

Presentation Night

Two of Moonee Valley's finest clubmen received special honors at our Presentation Night on April 13.
Three-hundred-gamer Mark Gauci - third on our all-time games list - received the only major honor which had eluded him up until now - our most prestigous trophy, the Lindsay Jones Award for best clubman.
At left: Mark Gauci responds to the announcement of his Lindsay Jones Award, while President Charlie Walker holds his plaque and the perpetual trophy.
And Sean O'Kane, who received Life Membership last year, was stunned and surprised to hear it announced that the Moonee Ponds Award - for best player in all grades other than the Firsts - had been renamed in his honor.
Fittingly, close mate Mark Gauci, who has played in two premierships with Sean - in the Firsts and the Sixths - was the inaugural winner of the Sean O'Kane Award.
And Sean's other closest mate at Moonee Valley, Dean Jukic, had the honor of announcing the renaming of the award and the inaugural winner, and had the crowd of more than 70 on the edge of their seats as he delivered an excellent and often-humorous speech, as only Deano can do it.
Jack Newman won the Club Champion Award.
Young star Krish Kanchan, who went from Under 14s-eligible to six games in our Firsts, was a runaway winner of the Most Improved Award.
At right: Three great mates together: L-R Sean O'Kane, Mark Gauci and Dean Jukic are honored.
Geoff McKeown won the Wicketkeeper of the Year.
And the Moonee Valley Cricket Club inducted its 30th and 31st Life Members - Ben Thomas and Peter Smith.
Ben and Postcode were joined at the front of the venue by the other Life Members present - Darren Nagle, Jim Polonidis, Danny Terzini, Matt Thomas, Sean O'Kane, Mark Gauci, Dean Jukic, Michael Cumbo, Jim McKenzie, Charlie Walker and Ian Denny. 
Thanks to our long-time sponsors the Moonee Ponds Club, which has been supporting our cricket club for well over a decade for again providing an excellent venue and a great meal.
**Watch this space for more words and photos from Presentation night: 

Congratulations to our young guns

Two of Moonee Valley's young guns won all-of-comp awards at the North West Metropolitan Cricket Association presentation night.
Harry Pickering collected the runner-up award in the Under 14 (1) bowling, while Noah Wallwork collected the Under 16 batting award.
Both Harry and Noah played senior cricket with us during the 2018/19 season - Harry making his debut, while Noah had previously played turf with the Valley.
The Under 14s missed out on the finals when tipped out by the last ball of the day in the last match of the season.
The Under 16s played the Grand Final at home at Ormond Park on two consecutive Friday evenings, but fell short in the run chase by 17 runs.
We had a formidable batting line-up in the Under 16s, with the top four bats - Noah Wallwork, Bevan Holder, Krish Kanchan and Luca Nimorakiotakis - all averaging more than 50 across the season.
Junior Co-ordinator Peter Pickering is already working and planning for next season, and sees a bright future for our junior program and the pathway into senior cricket.
Well done to our young men!
Above: Our junior comp award winners: Harry Pickering (left) with the Under 14 (1) runner-up bowling award, and Noah Wallwork with his Under 16 batting award.

Our Most Valuable Player and Fieldlow results

The Valley seniors held our MVP and fielding award vote counts at the Moonee Valley Bowls Club on March 10, and the call of the card brought plenty of excitement with each vote.
The count was hosted by Jonty Rhodes giving a brief account of every round of every game, while Peter Golding showed his skill with computers by adding the votes instantly to the big screen, along with the leader board after every round.
While it was the senior presentation night, some of our younger players who played a lot of senior cricket got into the action.
Junior Joshua Norsetter was prominent among them, winning the fielding awards for both the Thirds and Fourths, as well as the Fourths MVP.
And one of our gun fielders, Shaun Rayment, won the Sixths Fieldlow award as well as finishing runner-up in the Thirds. Shaun played and polled votes in every grade from the Seconds to the Sixths. He was also selected as 12th man for the Firsts for one game until a late replacement came through - and surely would have earned fielding votes there as well.
At right: Some of our MVP and Fieldlow winners from the night: L-R Mark Gauci, Paddy Shelton, Daniel Comande, Jim Polonidis, Cassidy Box and Jack Newman.
Our winners and runners-up in each grade are:
Firsts Fieldlow: Daniel Comande 19 votes, Channa DeSilva 15 votes
Firsts MVP: Jack Newman 39 votes, Shiwantha Kumara 32
Seconds Fieldlow: Damien Clarke 12, Nate Wolland 9
Seconds MVP: Jim Polonidis 107 (different voting system), Stephen Ward 83
Thirds Fieldlow: Josh Norsetter 11, Shaun Rayment 7
Thirds MVP: Dean Lawson 21. Mark Gauci 21 (equal winners), Jesse Felle 20
Fourths Fieldlow: Josh Norsetter 14, Ben Skok 7, Akshay Kapadia 7
Fourths MVP: Joshua Norsetter 31, Stephen Esmore 29
Fifths Fieldlow: Paddy Shelton 11, Elliott Hughes 10
Fifths MVP: Cassidy Box 24, Jesse O’Grady 22
Sixths Fieldlow: Shaun Rayment 8, Nick Taylor 7
Sixths MVP: Sam Carbone 14, Danny Terzini 13

Thanks to Frosty Simmons and the bowls club for hosting the night, and to our sponsors Florentine's for the hearty meal. 
***For the full votes in each grade, click HERE

So close: Under 16s go down in a

thriller

Moonee Valley's Under 16s fell an agonising 17 runs short in our Grand Final, in the unusual position of having plenty of wickets in hand but not enough overs to haul in the total.
At left: Our GF team. L-R: Back - coach Stephen Ward, Jack Drew, Tomas Morrissy, Krish Kanchan, Charlie Crook, Bevan Holder, Luca Nimorakiotakis, Jamie Akhurst, Noah Wallwork, Jack Cumming and Dylan Pleban. Front - Max Pickering, Caoimhin Corcoran and Felix Fischer.
The March 8 and 15 game - played on two consecutive Friday evenings at home at Ormond Park - was a see-sawing affair, with the Valleys having the ascendancy after Day 1 but the opposition getting off the hook and hitting out a bit to freely in the first half of Day 2.
We had excellent efforts with the bat - Bevan Holder (21) and Noah Wallwork (32) on Day 1, and then Luca Nimorakiotakis (19), Felix Fischer (22) and Krish Kanchan (104no) taking up the fight, but sometimes things don't always go to plan. We only lost the four wickets.
It was an excellent season to finish on top with our first Under 16 team since 2014/15. Most of our players came up from the Under 14s last season, so they were in the first year in the higher age group. And two of our players - Tomas Morrissy and Krish Kanchan - were still Under 14-eligible so we've got a lot to look forward to next season.
Ten members of the team played senior cricket at Moonee Valley during the course of the season, so we've got a lot of talent on the horizon for years to come - and some of the young guys have already arrived as senior cricketers.
At right: Under 16 Grand Final centurion Krish Kanchan with his father Venks - and Krish was still eligible for Under 14s!
Krish brought up his maiden century in the last over, with a powerful flat-batted six, and had to retire when victory was still a faint hope.

    Main Club contact details:

* Charlie Walker - President/Secretary 0411 705 381; 9370 1802
* Peter Golding - Treasurer 0419 009 721
* Mark Gauci - Vice President 0457 778 335
* Peter Pickering - Junior Co-ordinator 0414 800 145  pjp@vicbar.com.au 
* Channa DeSilva - Membership Co-ordinator 0402 833 592

Email: mooneev@club.cricketvictoria.com.au


For more contacts, see " Office bearers & Officials " under "Club News & Info" at the top of the page

Last updated: April 15, 2019.
For more of our history, including our Premierships, click HERE