BATHURST Panthers Rugby League Club president Dennis Comerford was honoured for his contribution to the club at their presentation on Friday night when he was presented with life membership.

Ten seasons of involvement as a team manager, committee member and over the last six seasons as a president, were all taken into consideration. Comerford admitted he had no idea it was coming.

“I didn’t know what was going on, it was something organised behind my back I guess you could say,” he explained.

“It was a very nice surprise, you don’t do these things to get a pat on the back, you do it because you have a passion for it and want to help out.

“But when that effort gets recognised it is still a nice feeling.”

Comerford began his official involvement with Panthers at a senior level in 2005 when he managed their under 18s side. It included his son Scott.

He kept that job through to the end of 2006 and then filled the same position with the first division side in 2007-08.

From there he took the role as president and has overseen some lean times in terms of the top grade squad. But overall the club has thrived with numerous lower grade titles while the premier league team looks to be on the up once more.

“Scott was playing juniors in 2003 and I was going to the games back then and kept following through the age groups. By the time he got to under 18s someone asked if I’d like a go at being the manager and I just stuck with it,” he said.

“There’s been a lot of highlights. In 2005 they won the under 18s title and it was the first time I’d worked with a team that had won a premiership, and the first time Scott had won one as well.

“Reserves went back to back in 2007-08, they’ve won titles since then with Stan Latu and Brian Moss in charge.

“More recently I think being involved with the club as the league tag competition has been established has been pretty satisfying, it started out as an initiative of Group 10 and only St Pat’s at that point really had a side.

“We took the idea on and tried to build on it, we made the grand final in our first season and have two titles since and I think that’s a great achievement.”

The task now for Comerford and his committee, coaches and players is to try to return to the summit in the top grade.

There were good signs this year as a relatively young team slowly found their groove and eventually charged into the finals from nowhere.

“We’ve had to really work hard on spending time bringing our juniors through to the first grade side and at times we struggled, but we proved this year that the group we’ve got can be competitive,” he said.

“Once they started to get some confidence they played some outstanding football and will be a lot better for it next year.”

The major individual award winners at the presentation were all honoured for their performances, with captain Brent Seager an unsurprising winner of the premier league best and fairest award.

In the other grades Trent Hotham (first division), Jed Betts (under 18s) and Amy Hewitt (league tag) won the best and fairest awards, with Hotham and Betts also taking out players’ player in their grades.

Monique Christie-Johnson and Blake Lawson were players’ player in league tag and premier league.

Most improved went to Chris Shephard (premier league), John Loughlin (first division), Robert Wright (under 18s) and Gabby Bugg (league tag).

Matt Woolmington took the premier league coach’s award with Nick Loader (first division), Harry Peacock (under 18s) and Amy Hewitt (league tag) also successful in that category.

Deb Mina picked up the Wilma Ash Memorial Award and Bill Humphries was named best clubman.