THE Big V Men’s season has wrapped for 2022, with an ultra-entertaining fixture resulting in some big wins, close finishes and outstanding individual performances. In Rookie Me Central‘s season review series, we will be taking a look at how each side fared throughout the year and how their respective seasons panned out as a whole.

Next up are the Blackburn Vikings, who showed glimpses of promise over the course of the season, but could not string it into any significant winning streak, and finished the year second-last in the 2022 standings.

Blackburn Vikings
2022 record – 6-15

The Vikings showed some strong signs over their 2022 campaign, able to scrounge together more than a handful of wins in their 21 games. However, the triumphs were too few and far between for Blackburn to produce a winning record, and they missed out on finals by a considerable margin in the end.

Things did not begin as the Vikings would have hoped, falling by just under 20 points in the season opener, a trend that continued into Round 2. The following week, Blackburn was finally able to get on the winners’ list with a 14-point triumph over the Hume Broncos to kickstart their campaign.

It was a promising sign as they looked to ignite their form and catch up to the sides that got off to a faster start. The Vikings made it two in a row when they took down the struggling Chelsea Gulls side and looked like turning things around after a slow beginning to their title quest.

They were brought back to earth by the Steelers and it began a serious drop in form from Blackburn. The Vikings were consistently conceding scores of 90-plus points, making it extremely difficult to muster up a win. They managed just four more wins for the year, and could not keep up with the genuine contenders of the league.

Blackburn’s biggest issue came from its lack of scoring across the year, given the fact they could only produce 100 points or more on one occasions. The best sides in the competition were regularly hitting triple-digits with their scores and the Vikings simply could not compete, so this is the biggest improvement area ahead of 2023.

In term’s of the season’s MVP, it was a two-horse race between D’Monte Evans and Edward Bourke, with the pair both contributing throughout 2022. Evans was the team’s leading scorer with an average of 18.86 points per game, and was the centrepiece of the side’s offence. However, we are going with Bourke, who had a well-rounded campaign over the course of the season. In 21 games, he averaged 12.33 points, 10.9 rebounds, two assists, 1.24 blocks and just under a steal a game, trying to do whatever it takes to get Blackburn to a winning record.