McInerney Embodies Brumbies Community Spirit

Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 1:56 AM
Brumbies.rugby
by Brumbies.rugby

Winning your club’s Best Male Player Award should be a highlight of the season for any youngster, but for Royals Sam Chaseling it had the potential to be a bittersweet moment. 

Chaseling, who attends Mount Stromlo High School, was unable to be at the Royals end of season presentation, in which he was scheduled to claim the award, due in no small part to the fractured Metacarpal bone in his left hand.

Such was his endeavour that Chaseling, who suffered the injury during Royals Semi-Final clash with Tuggeranong Vikings, gritted his teeth and played through the pain unaware of the extent of his injury.

Missing out on the presentation due to surgery, Chaseling was surprised by Plus500 Brumbies hooker Connal McInerney who, on hearing about Chaseling’s plight, at his own insistence, attended the hospital after handing out the awards to the rest of the Royals juniors at the event.

McInerney was a previous winner of the award himself so understood how important it was to the youngster and went out of his way to make sure that Chaseling enjoyed his special moment by personally visiting the Hospital to present him with the award.

 “I just thought Sam would’ve loved to be at the presentation rather than waiting hours on end in hospital to get his surgery,” the selfless McInerney said of his visit.

 “Having been a recipient of this award in the past, I know how I felt to be honoured like that, so I felt that Sam deserved to be congratulated in person.

"When Sam’s dad, Tim, had told me he’d been waiting at the hospital for the most part of four days to fix his hand he broke in his semi-final, it made it all the more worthwhile going to see him.“

"The Royals club means a lot to me, I’ve been a player there for nearly all of my rugby career, so something that took half an hour out of my day was the bare minimum I could do. I also loved meeting the kids at the presentation event and handing out some awards.”

McInerney is one of a number of Brumbies players out in the rugby community at present as a plethora of clubs conduct their own end of season presentation awards.

A full wrap of these awards ceremonies will be released on our social media channels shortly. 

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