He was named the Blues’ most valuable player for the 2017-18 shield season and was runner-up in the Steve Waugh Medal for NSW’s best overall player.

Copeland took 34 wickets for the season at an average of 23.58, while his economy rate of 2.50 was just as impressive.

“Any award where your team-mates vote on it, it’s always pretty special,” Copeland said.

“I think the disappointment of the season is well and truly driving us for next year. It is always nice to have personal accolades at the end of the year, but obviously I’d give it all back to be in the shield final that was on last week.”

This season was the fourth time Copeland had won the shield MVP award since he made his NSW debut in season 2010-11. Given he sits ninth on the list of all-time Blues wicket-takers in the annual competition, it is little surprise.

“I guess I’m one of the guys that has played a majority of the years and I play just about every game whereas others don’t, which gives me a leg up,” Copeland said of his success.

“I pride myself on trying to be as consistent as possible, so whether it’s a good day or a bad day, there are still results being put up.”

Over the course of the 2017-18 season Copeland missed just the one match.

Given the competition for spots in the NSW bowling attack at times included Test players Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon, Copeland’s inclusion shows the sort of regard he is held in.

“The one real goal of mine is to be in that side when all of the Aussies are available and the first game of the year when I was able to take a few wickets at Adelaide, basically everyone bar Josh Hazlewood was in that game,” Copeland said.

“That for me, that says I’m in a good space.”

In a season that included three five-wicket hauls and best match figures of 9-168, Copeland also enjoyed being injury free.

It allowed him to bowl mammoth spells and maintain his consistency – he sent down 344 overs across 17 innings for the season, of which 89 were maidens.

“For me injury-wise it was good this year too, I got hit a few times batting which made it close to me missing games, but in terms of the physical, with bowling, it was one of the good years,” he said.

“One of the ways of telling is on day three of shield games when I’m doing warm-ups is that I can touch the ground and do lunges and things like that I’m not in pain, generally that’s a good sign.

“That was the whole way through the year, including the last game. I bowled a whole session and a bit with the new ball in that last shield game, so that was a good sign physically that I’ve still got plenty to give.

“You play cricket long enough, you start to figure out what you’re good at, what you’re not good at and when to do things too. This year it was nice, particularly the back half of the year with the Duke ball. That’s on reflection of not doing as well as I would’ve liked the year before with the Duke ball.”