The Gunnedah FC teenager finished the top goal-scorer for the Premier Division with 17 goals, to take out the Golden Boot.

The 17-year old's form, after sitting out last season, was one of the positives coach Andy Cygan said in what was an otherwise frustrating season on a couple of fronts.

"I was really pleased for him," Cygan said.

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"He was by far probably the best player for us."

"He's the kind of player we need to keep playing next year."

He quipped that the way Rankmore plays you can sometimes forget how young he is, noting that he was only 15 when he was playing with them two years ago.

The emergence of a couple of other exciting youngsters such as Mitchell Mannion and 14-yeard old keeper Jesse Giles, who Cygan said they thought might train with them but ended up playing a few first grade games, were a couple of other highlights in what was a very up-and-down season and one that left Cygan wondering what might have been.

After winning four of their first five games to at one stage be sitting second, FC won just two of their next nine (there were a couple of draws in there) to slip down to fourth when COVID intervened and the season was abandoned.

"It was a bit of an anti-climax," Cygan admitted.

He said his hope at the start of the season was top four.

When they started as well as they did he dared to hope of top two. But when they lost their international trio, it "just died away".

"If we'd have had those three players all year, we would have challenged OVA," he lamented.

One of the things he attributed the fall away to was numbers.

Particularly in the latter part of the season they really struggled and had to forfeit a couple of reserve grade games.

"Once the three internationals left we had to bring three up from reserve grade," he said.

Injuries then further drained their resources.

It isn't a new thing.

"It's the same thing every year," Cygan said.

"I've done it for seven or eight years; we question every off-season whether we'll have enough."

One of the issues is, he said, they are generally relying on people who come to town to bolster their numbers.

They were fortunate this season to have three guns who were working on the solar farm project.

"Just having those few international boys made such a difference," he said.

"It just shows you only need a few decent players to be competitive."

Cygan also lamented the poor turnout for training.

"People didn't train, there's no real commitment there. That's the most frustrating thing," he said.

"If you can't get people to train, you can't improve."

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