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Following the news that Kevin Sheedy has left Greater Western Sydney to return to Essendon in a commercial role, let’s take a look back at how he turned the AFL’s youngest club into one that will soon contend for finals, and quite possibly a premiership, in the near future.
On July 25, 2007, it was announced that after almost three decades of good service to the Bombers, Kevin Sheedy’s time as coach of the club would end at the season’s conclusion.
During his tenure the Bombers won four premierships and produced greats such as Tim Watson, James Hird, Matthew Lloyd and Dustin Fletcher.
At the time it appeared that Sheedy’s time in the AFL was up. He had been approached to coach the Melbourne Demons, whose coach Neale Daniher resigned as the Dees slowly descended into the lightweight club it is today, but the top job ended up going to the late Dean Bailey.
More than two years after finishing as Essendon coach, Sheedy was again at the forefront of a major coaching announcement on November 9, 2009, when he signed on to become the inaugural coach of the Greater Western Sydney Football Club, signing a three-year contract.
The first two years basically involved building the team through the junior leagues (and subsequently the AFL Drafts), leading their reserves side through the 2011 NEAFL season and being left, right, front and centre of their campaign to gather as many members as possible ahead of their entry into the AFL in 2012.
It was during this time that Jeremy Cameron, Adam Treloar and Dylan Shiel first arrived at the club as unknowns. Now, the trio are crucial cogs as the club targets a maiden finals appearance.
One of Sheedy’s first major coups was landing the signature of Israel Folau, who was at the time starring for the Brisbane Broncos in the National Rugby League and flying for Queensland in the midst of their eight-year State of Origin dominance.
The signing of Folau was seen as a major risk for the club, as he had never played Australian rules football before and was thus stepping into the unknown. His foray into the sport would last just two years, after which he switched to rugby union to feature in the Waratahs’ 2014 Super Rugby-winning side.
As their entry into the big league loomed, more players signed on.
The first officially AFL-listed player to join the club was Adelaide defender Phil Davis, whose departure from the Crows led to football operations manager Phil Harper labelling the move “bloody disappointing”.
The big names continued to arrive – Tom Scully (from Melbourne), Rhys Palmer (Fremantle), Callan Ward (Western Bulldogs), Luke Power (Brisbane Lions) and Port Adelaide pair Dean Brogan and Chad Cornes all signed on before the club raided the Draft late in 2011, with names like Jonathan Patton, Stephen Coniglio, Will Hoskin-Elliot and Toby Greene joining.
On March 24, 2012, the club finally entered the Australian Football League, debuting in a local derby against the Sydney Swans to commence the season.
In a commendable performance, the Giants lost by 63 points – far less than what many AFL experts had predicted pre-match. Twelve months earlier, the Gold Coast Suns lost their first AFL match against Carlton by 119 points.
On May 12, 2012 the club defeated fellow AFL infants the Suns by 27 points at Manuka Oval in Canberra for their first win.
Their first win in Sydney was also worth the wait; after weeks of being battered, bruised and humiliated on the field, the club led from start to finish to defeat Port Adelaide by 34 points at Skoda Stadium in Round 19.
Not only was it their first win in their own backyard, it was also Kevin Sheedy’s 1000th VFL/AFL game as a player or coach.
In the end, just like the Suns before them, the club unsurprisingly struggled their way to the wooden spoon, which was Sheedy’s first as either a player or coach. The closest he had previously come to finishing last was when Essendon finished 15th in 2006 following a season ruined by injuries to key players, none more so than the serious hamstring injury suffered by captain Matthew Lloyd in Round 3.
Sheedy agreed to another year as Giants head coach, after which Leon Cameron, plucked from AFL powerhouses Hawthorn to become his right-hand man, would take over from the 2014 season onwards.
The club suffered through the second-year blues as they dropped their first 17 matches for the season, before breaking through for their only win of 2013 against the Melbourne Demons at home in Round 19.
After coaching at home for the final time in Round 22, 2013 against Richmond for a 121-point loss, Sheedy farewelled the AFL coaching arena for the last time against the Gold Coast Suns at Metricon Stadium, bowing out with an 83-point loss. He then handed the coaching clipboard to Cameron, who took the club to six wins in 2014 to move off the bottom of the ladder.
But Sheedy’s involvement with the Giants didn’t end there. He remained at the club in a commercial role, helping to continue to grow the game of Australian rules football in what is traditionally rugby league territory.
Such was his efforts in not only building the club, but also putting it on the western Sydney map, that he was recently named the club’s first Life Member, or, as the club put it, a “Giant for Life”.
The Giants will pay tribute to him when they play Essendon, Sheedy’s former club, at Spotless Stadium in the NAB Challenge on Friday night. When they meet again at the same venue in Round 19 of the premiership season, Sheedy will be back in the red and black but will still be respected by the club he built in western Sydney.
Since the club entered the AFL in 2012, participation in the sport has grown by 70 per cent, and just recently they was able to secure Jeremy Cameron to a five-year contract up until the end of 2020.
Under Sheedy, Cameron achieved All-Australian status in 2013, kicking 62 goals for a side that could only win a single match all year. His second AFL season was labelled as being better than that of Buddy Franklin’s.
Sheedy will leave the GWS Giants a much better place than when he first arrived, with the club poised to continue climbing up the ladder after an improved 2014 season on the field, this coming despite a huge financial loss off it.
He returns to a club that has lost their way since the sacking of Sheedy’s successor as head coach, Matthew Knights, in 2010. The 67-year-old will fill a commercial and marketing role at Essendon, whose image has taken a battering as a result of the supplements controversy.
He is the latest ex-Essendon identity to return to Windy Hill in recent times, following James Hird (restored as senior coach after serving a 12-month suspension), Mark Harvey (three-time premiership player, former assistant coach and former Fremantle coach) and Matthew Lloyd (270 games for 926 goals).
Former Melbourne coach Mark Neeld also joined the Bombers last October, given the role of developing the club’s younger players.
Sheedy’s return to Windy Hill sees his AFL odyssey go full circle, completing something of a restructure of the club’s board, and will almost certainly be his final involvement with any AFL club in any capacity as he closes in on the age of 70.
When people look back on the GWS Giants in the years to come, they will never forget the legacy that Kevin Sheedy left at the club, from the coaches’ box to the club’s board.
That’s why the club’s best and fairest award is named the Kevin Sheedy Medal.
May the club continue to prosper in the AFL post-Sheedy.
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