Fraser McReight felt the special significance of a lifetime of hard work being honoured with his Pilecki Medal success this week.
Winning the gong as Player of the Year at the Queensland Reds Awards Night earned cheers aplenty after a superb six months for the tireless openside flanker.
McReight tallied 257 votes to shade “Captain Consistency” Liam Wright (238) and centre Hunter Paisami (207), who both had excellent seasons.
Fittingly, McReight didn’t see the Pilecki Medal as a reward for short-term achievement in the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season but for commitment over a much longer period.
"This is hard to put into words. It's not just a year of work, it's my whole life," McReight said.
"To follow a good mate of mine (2022-23 winner) Harry Wilson and to know the phenomenal depth of talent in Queensland rugby really makes this mean a lot.
"This award is in honour of my family, my partner, my friends, teammates and the coaches. It's a massive honour."
McReight sees 2024 under first year Reds coach Les Kiss as only the beginning.
“Obviously, we have a few additions from Melbourne. They are going to add to the group,” McReight said.
“It’s been a great first season under Les. There’s plenty to work on but the world is our oyster.”
Flanker Carola Kreis was a standout for the Reds in the Buildcorp Super Rugby Women’s season and a worthy winner of the Shannon Parry Medal.
Kreis (141 votes) was a clear winner ahead of centre-winger Shalom Sauaso (95), winger Caitlin Urwin (76), winger Ivania Wong (75), fullback Lori Cramer (53) and hooker Tiarna Molloy (53).
Both awards tally votes on a 3-2-1 basis each game from the playing squad themselves.
"I had the privilege to play with ‘Shanno’ for a season. She's just a really good person,” Kreis said.
"To me, I want to be that person who people can come to and talk to. That respect from my teammates with this award makes it extremely special.”
The Reds’ women missed the semi-finals in 2024 but the positive springboard from the recent 65-0 win over Tonga in Nuku’alofa has started the reset.
“Obviously, losing is hard but if you can lose together it makes it a bit more bearable. It did bring us together off the field,” Kreis said.
“We had a lot of debutants this season and there will be players who step up with extra experience in 2025.
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The tears were much harder to process with Australia’s champion women’s sevens team suffering two excruciating losses to miss a medal at the Paris Olympics.
There’s a reason the Olympics are the pinnacle of sport because the pressure and the upsets are unlike anything you experience in the lead-up.
Three-time Olympian Charlotte Caslick showed class as always as she wiped away the tears.
“They leave their hearts out on the field so I couldn’t be prouder,” Caslick said of teammates awash with red eyes and heartache.
“We’ve had 23 podium finishes in the last three years so to miss out on this one hurts.
“But we’ll go again. That’s the beauty of sport.”
Uncharacteristic errors hurt the Aussies in the semi-final loss to Canada and the bronze medal play-off against the USA.
There will be churlish types from rugby league backgrounds taking cheap shots at missed chances by the fourth-placed women. Z-z-z-z-z
Invariably, none of those critics will mention that more 66,000-plus fans packed Stade de France for three days in a row. To watch women’s rugby sevens.
That’s a transformative moment for women’s rugby, the biggest attendance for women’s rugby in history.
It’s already transformative for the American bronze medallists with millions of dollars pledged from a corporate backer to take them to the next level for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Australia went into the tournament with a worldwide star in Charlotte Caslick and came out with two with Gold Coast’s Maddi Levi scoring a record 14 tries in six games.
“I’m a bit biased, but I think the women’s game is growing, it’s becoming a lot more fun and a lot more fascinating,” she said early in the tournament.
It’s true. A world sevens circuit where Australia and New Zealand aren’t always hot favourites to contest the final is great for the growth of the sport.
That’s a hard sell right now for the Aussie sevens girls, who play such a beautiful mix of pace, passing and precision when they are on song.
Alicia Lucas, the 2016 Rio Olympics sevens gold medallist, made the point that the women went into Paris “with the weight of the whole country on them” but accepted it was rightly so because they had been dominant and that was their stated goal.
If part of that pressure was having so many family members, friends and Aussies in the crowd, the best way to prepare for 2028 may be to replicate it more often.
It’s ridiculous that such crowd favourites only play one big tournament in Australia each year (in Perth).
Build another from the ground up at Ballymore and promote the life out of it to get a full house of 8000-plus. Let the team perform with the expectation of a home crowd all around them.
