Billy Wallace competition Team of the 2016 Season

Above: The 2016 Best & Fairest team’s halfback Tomasi Palu gets a pass way for Old Boys University against Oriental-Rongotai in their first round match, while Ories and Best & Fairest team captain Whetu Henry remonstrates with referee Ben O’Keeffe in the same match.

This year's fourth annual Wellington club rugby Billy Wallace Best & Fairest side would challenge most teams.

There’s some heavyweight performers up front, the usual mix of dynamic loose forwards that this competition produces year in-year out and some sparkling backs.

The team is based on the order of finishing of the 2016 Billy Wallace Best & Fairest competition, with Dominion Post contributors choosing 3, 2 and 1 points at every Swindale Shield and Jubilee Cup game.

For the first time, we have named a Best & Fairest reserves bench as well, made up of the traditional reserve hooker, prop, lock, loose forward and halfback and backs split.

Selection criteria are based on who was awarded the most points in each position throughout the season. For the most part, players in the Team of the Season have been selected in the position that they played most of their games in.

Some notes to the team include Greg Foe playing at No.8 exclusively for Poneke so he can only make the bench behind competition winner Peniasi Tokakece. Similarly, 2014 winner Ben Tupuoloa (Wainuiomata) and Matt Peni (Marist St Pat’s) both finished with more than 10 points. Sefo Aumua (Avalon) played 11 of 13 games he was eligible to earn points in at blindside flanker. He finished with two fewer points than Petone's Mateaki Kafatolu but the latter only played three matches in the first round at blindside. 

Also at blindside flanker Greg Leolofi (Wainuiomata) started half his games there, while Alex Dalzell (Wellington) played other positions other than lock in his 12 games for the Axemen, but he makes the bench ahead of his teammate James Ford. Their teammate James So’oialo played 10 of 15 games at first-five-eighth and the rest at fullback so comes off the bench in this paper team for Poneke’s Greg Mullany who earned two fewer Billy Wallace points but played all his 17 matches at pivot.

Best and Fairest points of course don’t necessarily measure a player’s impact over the course of the season, or one-off standout or influential performances. So players such as Marist St Pat’s captain Isaac O’Connor, Tawa’s Pepesana Patafilo, Oriental Rongotai’s Luke Taualupe, Upper Hutt Rams’ Max Pearson, Paremata-Plimmerton’s Grant Robson (another No, 8, see above), Avalon’s Logan Blake and Wainuiomata’s Glen Angus fall into this category. Similarly, Junior Togia ended with 10 tries and was the Player of the Jubilee Cup final.

Three Hardham Cup players have been selected in this year’s Best & Fairest 22. Hutt Old Boys Marist hooker and captain James O’Reilly and the Aumua brothers from Avalon (Sefo starting and Asafo on the bench) all accumulated enough points in the first 13 rounds of the season to earn selection. In the second round points were awarded solely in Jubilee Cup matches.

Oriental-Rongotai captain Whetu Henry makes the side for the third consecutive year, and he can nominally be the captain of this paper team.

The Billy Wallace Best & Fairest competition has been running every year since 1966, when Athletic club and All Black Tom Lister was its inaugural recipient. Tawa flanker TJ Fermanis and Wellington halfback Adam Deck won it last year.

The 2016 Billy Wallace Best & Fairest Wellington club rugby Team of the Year, with their points accumulated in brackets with their club:

1. Finnbarr Kerr-Newell (OBU – 8)
2. James O’Reilly (HOBM – 7 - Hardham Cup player)
3. Whetu Henry (Oriental-Rongotai – 14 - Captain)
4. Hemi Fermanis (Tawa – 11)
5. Pati Gaualofa (Tawa – 8)
6. Sefo Aumua (Avalon - 8 - Hardham Cup player)
7. Mitchell Markov (Upper Hutt Rams – 16)
8. Peniasi Tokakece (Tawa – 18 - competition winner)
9. Tomasi Palu (OBU – 16)
10. Greg Mullany (Poneke – 11)
11. Mike Buckley (MSP – 6)
12. Joyner Key (Upper Hutt Rams – 11)
13. Wes Goosen (OBU – 15)
14. Peter Umaga-Jensen (Wainuiomata – 14)
15. Pakai Turia (Poneke – 13)

16. Asafo Aumua (Avalon – 6 - Hardham Cup player)
17. Attila Va’a (Wainuiomata – 4)
18. Alex Dalzell (Wellington – 8)
19. Greg Foe (Poneke – 16)
20. Peter Sciascia (MSP – 10)
21. James So’oialo (Wellington – 13)
22. Roy Kinikinilau (Oriental-Rongotai – 10)