Candiru
Premiership Player
- Jan 27, 2018
- 3,373
- 4,602
- AFL Club
- West Coast
I’ve been obsessively following the Eagles for 30 years.
I was there when we won Grand Finals in 1992 and 1994. I was there when we kicked one goal against Essendon in 1989. I’ve been around. I grew up in Melbourne and then lived in Sydney and then moved abroad. My circumstances have changed over the years. My obsession with West Coast has not.
In my reckoning, this 2018 premiership is the high point of the club’s history.
I understand that in the aftermath of any win, people get carried away and reach for superlatives. In the aftermath of a win, everything is “the best” or “the biggest” or “the most exciting”. I hear that. Nonetheless, this season is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen as a WC fan. I make no apologies for saying so. Anyone who disagrees can EAD.
I should also offer a full disclosure. I was among the doubters. I thought Simpson was limited. At different stages, I criticised Sheed, Jetta, Redden, Hutchings, Cole, Lycett, Vardy, Venables, Darling, LeCras, Masten. It’s a long list. Before the season started, I thought we could play finals but not much more than that. I thought we just had to write it off as a transition year. Play finals, blood some kids, make the eight, nothing exciting. That would have been a successful season, in my book.
Instead, this crew produced something that completely stunned me. We won 10 in a row. We smashed Richmond by 50 points. We beat Collingwood at the MCG by 6 goals. Those should have been red flags for anyone who thought we weren’t contenders. The way we played was so spirited. It caught me off-guard. We’d been flakey for years but we played this season like our nuts were on the line. It was inspirational. I’m cynical but the way we played this year hit me hard in the feels.
Of course, the problem with all of that is that we lost some guys along the way. I maintain that I felt worse after NicNat did his knee for the second time than I did after we lost the 2015 Grand Final. I was in a pit of despair for a month after that. Sure, we won a flag in 2018. But I’ll never be OK with how much footy NicNat has missed in his peak. Then Gaff got rubbed out for eight weeks. Then Sheppard popped his hammy. That’s a huge chunk of top-line quality on the sidelines. Star ruckman. #1 midfielder. Gun medium defender. If Richmond or Collingwood lost those players, they’d write an epic poem about it.
And yet we found a way.
But what’s the difference between 2018 and 1992, 1994 and 2006? Great teams. Hooray. What’s the difference?
In my opinion, the difference is definitive. The difference makes 2018 the high point in WC history.
In my opinion, the difference is about the balance between talent and game plan.
In our previous premiership seasons, we had exquisite top-end talent, and the challenge was simply to assemble a side or strategy around it that would be competitive in finals.
That’s what Malthouse did in 1992 and 1994. We had s**t-hot talent but Malthouse built a defence-first style that allowed us to strangle teams and then take them apart when we got the ball. Obviously that is a simplification but I think it’s pretty accurate.
We did something similar in 2006. We had Cox, Cousins, Judd, Kerr in the centre square. Worsfold built a team around that apex talent. We only just snuck over the line in 2006 despite having the best starting centre-square combination of the modern era. And then it went to s**t. Again, we had awesome top-shelf talent, concentrated in the midfield, and a game plan built around that.
That’s not what happened in 2018. This year, we built a game plan that could withstand devastating losses of talent. We lost Naitanui. We lost Gaff. We lost Sheppard. We won anyway. We won through system and structure and character and grit. That’s not how WC has won premierships in the past. We’ve won them because we had an edge in talent and then built a game plan around that. This year, we did the opposite. We played a brand of football that held up even when we lost our best players. That’s not how WC win flags. But we did it in 2018.
Look at all the players we had in 2018 who had been written off previously to varying degrees. And not just by dickheads in the Victorian media. These guys were whacked by us, the WC faithful. Look at the 22 who won today and at least half of them have been belted on this board at different stages. And yet we found a way.
Again, I want to emphasise that I was among the doubters. This is not a thread about how “everyone got it wrong and I was right haha hahaha”. I also got it wrong. This is a thread about how we won it. I didn’t see it coming. I don’t think many of us did. But the way we won it was spectacular. I’ve never been more proud. In my opinion, this season has been the high point of the club’s history.
I was there when we won Grand Finals in 1992 and 1994. I was there when we kicked one goal against Essendon in 1989. I’ve been around. I grew up in Melbourne and then lived in Sydney and then moved abroad. My circumstances have changed over the years. My obsession with West Coast has not.
In my reckoning, this 2018 premiership is the high point of the club’s history.
I understand that in the aftermath of any win, people get carried away and reach for superlatives. In the aftermath of a win, everything is “the best” or “the biggest” or “the most exciting”. I hear that. Nonetheless, this season is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen as a WC fan. I make no apologies for saying so. Anyone who disagrees can EAD.
I should also offer a full disclosure. I was among the doubters. I thought Simpson was limited. At different stages, I criticised Sheed, Jetta, Redden, Hutchings, Cole, Lycett, Vardy, Venables, Darling, LeCras, Masten. It’s a long list. Before the season started, I thought we could play finals but not much more than that. I thought we just had to write it off as a transition year. Play finals, blood some kids, make the eight, nothing exciting. That would have been a successful season, in my book.
Instead, this crew produced something that completely stunned me. We won 10 in a row. We smashed Richmond by 50 points. We beat Collingwood at the MCG by 6 goals. Those should have been red flags for anyone who thought we weren’t contenders. The way we played was so spirited. It caught me off-guard. We’d been flakey for years but we played this season like our nuts were on the line. It was inspirational. I’m cynical but the way we played this year hit me hard in the feels.
Of course, the problem with all of that is that we lost some guys along the way. I maintain that I felt worse after NicNat did his knee for the second time than I did after we lost the 2015 Grand Final. I was in a pit of despair for a month after that. Sure, we won a flag in 2018. But I’ll never be OK with how much footy NicNat has missed in his peak. Then Gaff got rubbed out for eight weeks. Then Sheppard popped his hammy. That’s a huge chunk of top-line quality on the sidelines. Star ruckman. #1 midfielder. Gun medium defender. If Richmond or Collingwood lost those players, they’d write an epic poem about it.
And yet we found a way.
But what’s the difference between 2018 and 1992, 1994 and 2006? Great teams. Hooray. What’s the difference?
In my opinion, the difference is definitive. The difference makes 2018 the high point in WC history.
In my opinion, the difference is about the balance between talent and game plan.
In our previous premiership seasons, we had exquisite top-end talent, and the challenge was simply to assemble a side or strategy around it that would be competitive in finals.
That’s what Malthouse did in 1992 and 1994. We had s**t-hot talent but Malthouse built a defence-first style that allowed us to strangle teams and then take them apart when we got the ball. Obviously that is a simplification but I think it’s pretty accurate.
We did something similar in 2006. We had Cox, Cousins, Judd, Kerr in the centre square. Worsfold built a team around that apex talent. We only just snuck over the line in 2006 despite having the best starting centre-square combination of the modern era. And then it went to s**t. Again, we had awesome top-shelf talent, concentrated in the midfield, and a game plan built around that.
That’s not what happened in 2018. This year, we built a game plan that could withstand devastating losses of talent. We lost Naitanui. We lost Gaff. We lost Sheppard. We won anyway. We won through system and structure and character and grit. That’s not how WC has won premierships in the past. We’ve won them because we had an edge in talent and then built a game plan around that. This year, we did the opposite. We played a brand of football that held up even when we lost our best players. That’s not how WC win flags. But we did it in 2018.
Look at all the players we had in 2018 who had been written off previously to varying degrees. And not just by dickheads in the Victorian media. These guys were whacked by us, the WC faithful. Look at the 22 who won today and at least half of them have been belted on this board at different stages. And yet we found a way.
Again, I want to emphasise that I was among the doubters. This is not a thread about how “everyone got it wrong and I was right haha hahaha”. I also got it wrong. This is a thread about how we won it. I didn’t see it coming. I don’t think many of us did. But the way we won it was spectacular. I’ve never been more proud. In my opinion, this season has been the high point of the club’s history.