Torquay star Matt Boag says the late Frank Fopiani was a huge mentor during his days at Newtown & Chilwell

A BFNL star has paid tribute to a late Newtown & Chilwell mentor after taking out the Les Ash Medal following a superb first season back at his junior club.

22 of Torquay’s James Darke’s 24 possessions were handballs against Drysdale. Picture: Mark Wilson

Torquay champion Matthew Boag has paid tribute to a late Newtown & Chilwell mentor during his Les Ash Medal acceptance speech on Wednesday night.

Boag, who won the medal comfortably from Anglesea’s Jordan Keras in second, told Buckley’s Entertainment Centre that Frank Fopiani, who died earlier this month and was farewelled today, was a “great influence” on Boag’s career after crossing to the Eagles.

“Many youngsters for Newtown, including myself, learned a lot of midfield craft off him,” Boag said on Thursday night.

“My thoughts go out to (Frank’s son) Connor and his family, I’m pretty close with Connor, he was a hard working kid so it was terrible to see, rest in peace, Frank.”

Boag, who made his senior debut with the Tigers as a 16-year-old, left the club in 2015 to test himself in the GFNL before returning for the 2024 season.

Matt Boag won the Les Ash Medal for a standout season in the BFNL. Picture: Ben Cameron

And the midfield star had an incredible campaign in 2024, leading the BFNL for contested possessions, disposals, ranking points and score and goal involvements.

He paid tribute to Tigers premiership coach Dom Gleeson for challenging him on a regular basis.

“He’s always backing you in, giving you plenty of confidence to play your own game, play to your strengths,” he said.

“He’s also challenging as well which I love, he’s challenged me on plenty of different things, different ways to improve my game.

“He’s been nothing short of amazing, we’ve got along like a house on fire.”

Earlier, Gleeson told the crowd that discussions with Boag about potentially coming back to McCartney Oval had happened for years.

“Dom had always been saying: ‘When you’re ready just let me know’,” he said.

“He didn’t really push me at all which was always nice.

“I heard from a lot of the boys that I had played with growing up that Dom had created a really good environment, a winning environment.

“It’s been nothing short of amazing and hopefully we can cap it off this weekend.”

Boag admitted he felt “anxious” after losing the qualifying final to Anglesea.

Having never played in a senior grand final before, he feared his chance might be slipping away.

The late Frank Fopiani, with son Connor, was a big influence on Matt Boag’s younger days at Newtown & Chilwell. Picture: Alison Wynd

“I was pretty anxious, we just had to go back to work and pull up our socks as they say, do our best,” he said.

“We were pretty disappointed with our second half against Anglesea so it was good to put in a four quarter performance against Drysdale (last Saturday).”

Boag said with the loss of key forward Lucas Anderson to an ACL in Round 4, Gleeson had preached the mantra of “next man up”.

Meanwhile, he said it was nice to be acknowledged personally but more important things lay ahead on Saturday against the Roos in the Tigers’ third consecutive grand final.

“I always like to think that the individual awards are a show of hard work, and I’ve put in a fair bit of work over the last few years,” he said.

“If you put in the work hard and you put your head down, you can get rewarded.

“It’s nice to get recognised but I came down to Torquay with one thing in mind … a premiership medal.

“It is nice, but it’s not what I came here to do.

“It’s been an amazing year … hopefully we get the choccies Saturday.”

Chase Loftus puts in brilliant first half performance against Drysdale

Torquay young gun Chase Loftus says a training session at Leopold Memorial Park a few weeks ago was handy preparation for a deep finals run as the Tigers chase back-to-back flags this Saturday.

Loftus, alongside James Darke and Matt Boag, were the most dominant players on the ground in the first half for Torquay against Drysdale in a preliminary final, as the Tigers adapted well to the largely foreign conditions.

The club’s reigning best and fairest winner picked up 13 touches in a sensational opening quarter before adding two brilliant second term goals, including one from beyond the half forward flank, which was carried by the wind and bounced fortuitously between the uprights.

“The wind helped me a bit,” Loftus said of his miraculous second term goal.

“I thought it was out on the full and somehow it went in.”

Chase Loftus tackles Anglesea’s Lachlan Smith in a qualifying final. Picture: Mark Wilson

Loftus said Darke, who missed last year’s premiership due to a season-ending knee injury, was “unreal” after coming back from a broken left hand.

Picking up 24 touches for the game, 22 of them were handballs – 20 deemed effective by Premier Data – as Darke fed his outside runners.

“He’s flying now,” he said.

“It looks like he’s been playing (all year).

“It’s really hard to see anyone miss a grand final, especially him, (considering) how much he’s done for the club.”

Darke and Boag would have 17 and 19 possessions respectively in the opening half.

Loftus would go on to record a game-high 14 groundball gets – followed by Darke with 13 – while collecting 19 contested touches (second only to Boag).

Meanwhile, the Tigers showed what a wide array of weapons it contains, with Tom Hooper playing down back on Cam Delaney and Wil Tamassay sidelined with a knee and restricted to just one match since Round 14.

James Darke had a huge first half against Drysdale. Picture: Mark Wilson

After losing to Anglesea in a qualifying final the previous week, Loftus said the Tigers responded strongly and managed to stifle the Hawks’ scoring when they had the breeze at their backs.

“We adjusted to their game plan and we utilised our different plans of attack,” he said.

“I think we weren’t switched on with changing our attack modes (against Anglesea), we’ve got a few different attack modes.

“We were playing the same way the whole time. You could definitely tell how we were switching our attack modes (against the Hawks), slower or faster when we needed to.

“Two weeks ago we came down here and had a training session.

“We were more switched on this week.

“I think it’s going to work well for us next week (against Anglesea).”

Torquay’s Ben McNamara is tackled by Flinn Chisholm. Picture: Mark Wilson

Boag would go on to pick up a game-high 37 touches (20 contested), nine inside 50s, 191 ranking points, 14 clearances and two great running goals to be a pretty strong candidate for best on ground.

Meanwhile, Joel Watson and Delaney, the Hawks’ two most damaging forwards the previous Sunday against Modewarre, were kept to a total of eight touches between them and no goals.

Ben McNamara led the Tiger defence, with his disposal out of defensive 50 a particular highlight.

He collected seven rebounds from defensive 50, as did his teammate in Billy Henderson, while defender Weylin Doyle had five intercept marks.

Originally published as Torquay star Matt Boag says the late Frank Fopiani was a huge mentor during his days at Newtown & Chilwell