One year ago last Sunday, Nick Sherston flew back into Australia to play for the Douglas Reef Raiders after playing the 2010 season in Canada for the Calgary Canucks.

Fast forward 12 months to the day and Sherston has collected the Cairns and District Rugby Union’s best and fairest award, the Woodward Medal, at the Shangri-La Hotel in Cairns.

Scoring at least one vote in every game of the regular season, Sherston is the second Raiders player to win the league medal after veteran Shane Branch claimed honours in 2004.

“It was a bit of a surprise actually,” 27-year-old Sherston told The Newsport on winning the medal.

“I had an OK season, the first half of the year was probably better before I started struggling with an ankle injury midway through the year.

“But I suppose I was consistent – and I don’t talk much to the refs, which probably helps.”

The Raiders halfback played a similar role for the Canucks last year, who were Calgary City Champions and Provincial Grand Finalists for 2010.

“I was playing in the U.S. with a Barbarians side prior to that and had mates up in Canada, so I went up there to play with them from April to August,” he said.

“It’s a hard and fast comp and I actually had a groin injury for the majority of that tour, I found it hard to run.”

But an intensive pre-season fitness campaign with the Raiders soon had Sherston back on track, the Raiders crediting their fitness campaign with a resulting CDRU finals berth.

“Fitness was definitely an advantage this season, the Raiders were by far the fittest team, a lot fitter than the other teams.

“All that training was worth it in the end, although it would have been a great result to go further than last week’s minor semi,” Sherston said of Raiders’ 30 to 27 semi final loss to Barron Trinity in the dying minutes two weeks ago.

The Raiders, their opposition and the crowd at West Barlow Park all thought the Raiders had the semi-final win in the bag when a conversion in extra time looked successful.

But the result was not to be, the two touch judges waving the result against the Raiders.

“That was a good, solid game – we all tried hard and it would have been nice to go further than we did,” Sherston said.

“Hopefully we have a good season next year and go one better, if not all the way.”

Southside will play James Cook University in this weekend’s CDRU grand final, after Barron Trinity threw away a 37-14 lead deep in the second half to lose their final against Southside on Saturday at Barlow Park.