Centre Phillip Sami capped off a stellar season 2017 yesterday when he was named in the 2017 NYC ‘Team of the Year’.
The 20-year-old started the season as part of the NYC side but finished as an NRL player, making four appearances at the top level, at the end of the season.
The Goodnah Eagles junior is happy with the achievement.
“It does add to making my NRL debut and it’s definitely the best year of footy that I’ve had,” Sami said. I didn’t expect to play NRL when the season started so it’s a fair achievement.”
“It was a lot more physical and fast out there (in the NRL). I’ve just got to continue to learn.”
Sami admitted that at the start of 2017 he had made a number of changes to his lifestyle in order to get himself ready to compete to the best of his ability.
“Eating better was probably the biggest thing. I also made sure I was entirely focused when I came to training.”
After a big 2017, Sami will join 20s partner AJ Brimson as part of the full-time training squad for 2018 and has made the promise to work even harder.
“We both (Brimson) plan to train through the off-season so we can come back bigger and stronger for the pre-season.”