NSW Swifts defender Sarah Klau has been named the club’s QBE Most Valued Player for the 2020 Suncorp Super Netball season.
Presented by Principal Partner QBE Insurance, the MVP award is given to the player that has polled the greatest number of votes from league-appointed high-performance selectors over the regular season, and is the club’s highest honour.
Previous recipients include the likes of Kim Green, Cath Cox, Bec Bulley, Laura Langman, Susan Pettitt, Caitlin Thwaites, Maddy Proud and Sam Wallace.
Despite missing out on back-to-back Premierships in 2020, Klau continued to be one of the league’s standout defenders, earning selection for the Australian Diamonds once again.
Head coach Briony Akle said this was a wonderful recognition of the player Klau has become since she joined the Swifts in 2017.
“The growth we’ve seen in Sarah as a player since she first arrived in Sydney has been remarkable and I hope this adds even more belief to her armoury going forward,” Akle said.
“She is a proven Championship winner and backed that up with another fine campaign in 2020.
“Sarah has a fantastic relationship with Maddy Turner in defence, and with another great Aussie talent in Lauren Moore coming through too, I know she’ll have a very strong team around her as she looks to take her game up another level in 2021.
“She just out of Diamonds camp after a gruelling Super Netball hub in Queensland so I hope she takes the next few months to get some much-needed down time before we ramp up for pre-season early in the new year.”
Wallace - club MVP in 2018 and 2019 - was on the winners list again in 2020, sharing the Coaches Award with teammate Paige Hadley while the latter also picked up a second award after being voted the Members’ Player of the Year for the second season in succession.
In the other awards presented on the night Sophie Garbin capped off a fine season, in which she earned her first Diamonds call-up, with the Players’ Player of Year Award, while long-serving team performance analyst Bjorn Maddern was named the Club Person of the Year.
QBE Swifts Academy player Leilani Rohweder, who travelled with the team to the Queensland hub, was also awarded the Marj Groves AM Scholarship to further aid her netball development.
In closing the night, Swifts Executive General Manager Nikki Horton thanked the players, coaches and staff for making a season happen despite the challenges of COVID19.
“While we didn’t achieve our goal of back-to-back titles, another Finals run is a good return when you consider the disruption of 2020 and it sets us up well for 2021 when hopefully we’ll have home games.
“Getting the Suncorp Super Netball season up and running this year involved a huge amount of sacrifice from our players, coaches, high performance and wider club staff. I would like to thank everyone of them, as well as our Members, for making 2020 work. It will only make us stronger.
“Now we move on to 2021, the planning for which is already well underway.”
