ACT Brumbies stars and former Uni-North Owls players Siokapesi Palu and Toby Macpherson both won major honours at the Rugby Australia awards in Sydney on Wednesday.
Our organisation was well represented on the night, with Rob Valetini also taking out the John Eales Award as the Wallabies Player of the Year Award for the second year running.
Brumbies skipper Palu, 28, was named Buildcorp Super Rugby Women's Player of the Year after another sensational season.
She was a standout for the ACT Brumbies in the competition, leading the side to a semi-final appearance, before going on to a play a pivotal role in the Wallaroos victory in the WXV2 Championship in South Africa earlier this month.
Palu was delighted to receive the award last night while highlighting the potential of a young and hugely talented Brumbies squad.
“It’s truly humbling. It’s such a prestigious award to receive, I don’t really know where to start! The finalists were deserving to be alongside me as well," Palu said.
“My teammates at the Brumbies are definitely international players and they’ll only get better. They’re so young and they’ve got so much growth potential, but the game is so much more than what you see on the field in terms of the culture that we have. I hope they build on that moving forward.
“We know that we’re capable of a better performance than the (Super Women’s Pacific) semi-final, but you could see there was so much growth from the first round of the season to that game, against a top-tier team who went on to win the tournament in the Waratahs.
"We can take positives from that, we just need to make sure we start at that sort of level and build for next year."
Meanwhile Macpherson, 20, captained the Wallabies U20s side during the World Rugby U20 Championship in South Africa earlier this year.
He is currently on loan with Toyota Verblitz in Japan to get some more experience at a high level and will return to the ACT Brumbies in June next year.
Both Palu and Macpherson previously played for Uni-Norths Owls, a strong, multicultural community club in Canberra, before making the step up to the ACT Brumbies.
