O'Neill said he had played at Riverside since he was a "little tacker" and had resisted the move up to the Victory League.

"I would like to think that within the next couple of years Riverside will advance to the stage of being accepted into the Victory League," he said.

After finishing the roster season undefeated Riverside was beaten by Somerset for the Northern Premier League title and O'Neill is convinced his club has enough talented young players to take the next step.

O'Neill, 24, is into his second year as captain of Riverside and plays as a central defender for his club.

The Northern Premier League held its end of season awards dinner in Burnie on Saturday night and O'Neill said he was "pretty shocked" when his name was announced as the winner of the George Dale Medal.

The winner wasn't known until the final round of votes was counted with O'Neill winning by a single vote.

O'Neill, a youth worker with National Job Link, used to play several other sports but now concentrates solely on soccer.

His coach Wayne Penfold was also among the trophy winners after being awarded the coach of the year after guiding Riverside through an unbeaten roster season.

Launceston City's Caitlin Storay made it back to back wins when she took out the best and fairest award in the Northern Women's Premier League, the coach of the year award went to Michael Foote from Ulverstone and the referee of the year award was won by Simon Natoli.