WHEN thinking of a player to refer to as 'Mr Consistent', Jake Betts fits the bill pretty well.
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The Bathurst Panthers skipper rarely has a bad game and he'd been one of the first players picked when naming a Western Rams representative side.
And now Betts has been rewarded for his performances, with the talented lock being named the Group 10 first grade player of the year.
Unfortunately Betts and his teammate's season came to an end at the hand of Orange Hawks on Saturday, but the Panthers skipper said he was still pleased to take home the award.
"I wasn't expecting that, it was a bit of a shock to be honest," Betts said on winning the award.
"Obviously you don't play for them, it's a team sport.
"But I guess it was nice to be recognised but I think Hayden Bolam would've won it in a canter if he didn't hurt himself."
Bolam was last year's Group 10 player of the year, but he was ruled out for the rest of the season after he sustained an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury while playing for St Pat's in a match with Panthers in July.
Betts is the first Panthers to win the player of the year trophy in seven years, after Jeremy Gordon took home the honours in 2016.
"Yeah I played with that year," Betts remembers.
"He always gave me stick about it because he pipped me that year and he's never let me live it down."
Betts was named captain of Panthers ahead of the 2022 season and for the second consecutive year he's led them to the second week of the finals.
And his team didn't start the 2023 campaign in ideal fashion, after a 60-0 mercy rule loss to Dubbo CYMS and 34-6 loss to Parkes in the opening two rounds of the season.
Panthers would win eight of their last 12 games of the season to finish third in the Group 10, setting up an elimination final against Nyngan Tigers at Carrington Park on August 20.
Panthers won that match 32-12, but suffered a 36-20 loss to Hawks a week later.
"If you look back at round one and then to look where we finished, you probably think it was a pass mark," Betts said.
"But we're disappointed. We wanted to sort of finish a bit deeper, but you know the boys busted their backsides and it's credit to them to come from where we were at the start of the season.
"We're a bit upset how it ended but to be fair, it's probably the best four teams left in the competition."
In other grades, Blayney Bears' Alex Pettit won the Group 10 reserve grade player of the year award, while the under 18s honour went to Lithgow Workies' Eli Morris.
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