GARETH Widdop has been voted as Warrington Wolves' player of the year for 2021 by Warrington Guardian readers.
As a result of man of the match polls run on the Guardian website after every match this season, the scrum-half emerged the comfortable winner.
Jake Mamo polled the second-most amount of votes, with Daryl Clark third.
Watch what Gareth Widdop had to say about winning the award below as he chats to Guardian sports reporter Matt Turner
It is another individual accolade for Widdop, who was also named as the club's player of the year while also being nominated for the Steve Prescott MBE Man of Steel award.
He scored 10 tries and set up 13 more in Super League, despite missing several weeks of the campaign with a knee injury picked up against Leigh Centurions in June.
"It’s certainly special," he told the Guardian upon receiving the award.
"To receive the club’s player of the year the other week was a huge honour, but to get this award as well from supporters who turn up week in week out does mean a lot.
"I feel like I started the year really well. Individually, I was happy with my game and we were playing pretty well as a team.
"Unfortunately, as seems to be the case at the minute, I picked up an injury mid-year and missed about eight weeks.
"It wasn’t ideal and when I came back, I found it hard to get back into a rhythm. We’d have a game then have one cancelled for Covid, we’d be back again then another would be cancelled.
"I felt like I was getting towards my best at times. I put a big emphasis on having a good pre-season and starting well, and I felt like I did that.
"As the games went on, I felt like I was getting close to my best.
"Then with about 30 seconds to go against Leigh, I ended up doing my MCL in my knee.
"I was starting to get a rhythm and I was enjoying my game, so to have that kind of setback was disappointing."
Having partnered Blake Austin in the halves at the start of the year, Widdop was paired with new signing George Williams upon his return from injury but The Wire fell to their third consecutive first-hurdle exit in the play-offs, losing to Hull KR in last month's eliminator tie.
The England international admits the disappointment could take a while to recover from and acknowledges that ultimately, the team let supporters down.
"It’s great to get these individual accolades, but ultimately it’s a team sport and we’re in it together. To get to a Grand Final and win it is what we all want to do," he said.
"To finish the way we did, it still hurts now to be honest.
"It’s going to take a while to get over – it was certainly disappointing as a team that’s for sure.
"In the last two or three games, I felt like we were getting there but on the big stage, we let ourselves down and we let the supporters down."
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