If there is one man who must be feeling embarrassed at the moment, it is respected footballing journalist Robert Walls.
At the start of this season, Walls predicted that the West Coast Eagles would take out the wooden spoon, while the other team from Western Australia, Fremantle, would rise again after two years without September football.
In fact, nearly no-one except for the Eagles die-hards had forecast that their side would contend for this year’s premiership.
Last September, Adam Simpson’s men were soundly beaten by the GWS Giants in Sydney by eleven goals in the lowest-attended final for a century, after which veteran players Sam Mitchell, Drew Petrie and Matt Priddis bowed out of the game.
That came after they’d been hammered by Hawthorn in the 2015 grand final, in which several key players saved their worst efforts for last, while they also suffered an equally embarrassing elimination final loss at the hands of the Western Bulldogs at home in 2016.
Thus, they had every right to be written off in 2018, and indeed they appeared headed for a long year after they lost their season opener against the Sydney Swans by five goals in the first match at the new Optus Stadium.
However, a big win against the Bulldogs in Melbourne on April Fools Day would mark the start of a ten-match winning streak, which would take them to the top of the ladder in round twelve.
Another loss to the Swans brought that winning streak to an end, before their season appeared to take a turn for the worse when Nic Naitanui went down with a second serious knee injury in three years against Collingwood at the MCG in round seventeen.
Nic Naitanui has copped a controversial ban. (AAP Image/Tony McDonough)
Worse came three rounds later, when Andrew Gaff copped a season-ending eight-match suspension from the judiciary for his sickening blow to Fremantle’s Andrew Brayshaw, marking the equal-longest sanction handed out to a player for a single on-field incident in AFL history (after Jeff Farmer also copped as many weeks for his king hit on Cameron Ling in 2008).
The grand final was the sixth match he missed, and with another two matches to serve, it means he will be eligible to return in Round 3.
It remains to be seen whether his comeback match will be for the Eagles, or for another club (and even possibly against the Eagles), with the likelihood that he will be traded to a Victorian club during the trade period in October still alive.
However, the Eagles would put all those distractions behind them to qualify for their fourth consecutive finals series, finishing second on the ladder and landing a home qualifying final against Collingwood at the new Optus Stadium.
Wins over the Pies, and then the Dees by eleven goals in the subsequent preliminary final, saw them through to their second grand final in four years, where they were to again face the Pies, but this time at the MCG.
A repeat of the humiliation they suffered against Hawthorn three years ago appeared on the cards when the Pies kicked the first five goals of the game, before the Eagles started working their way back into the match, pegging back two goals to trail by 17 points at quarter-time.
They then kicked two goals to one in the second quarter to trail by twelve points at half-time, before a tense third quarter saw the scores level at the final change of ends for the season for just the second time ever (after 1937).
Goals to Brody Mihocek and Jordan de Goey saw the Pies skip out to a two-goal lead within the first two minutes of the final quarter, but while the Eagles would not give in, they would need a hero to step up if they were to capture their fourth flag and first since 2006.
Enter Dom Sheed.
With less than two minutes remaining, and with his side two points down, Sheed kicked the season’s final goal from a tight angle to put his side in front by four points.
Dom Sheed of the Eagles celebrates (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
A dropped mark on the line from Jack Darling increased the margin to five points, giving the Pies the faintest of chances of going from one end to the other to steal back the lead, however, the Eagles would hold on to win what has already been regarded as one of the greatest grand finals in recent memory.
It is their first flag since 2006, in which they defeated the Sydney Swans by the barest of margins, and the result also ended their equal-longest premiership drought, their previous flag before that coming in 1994 when they thrashed the Geelong Cats by 80 points.
It also ends a five-year streak of dominance by Victorian clubs against their interstate counterparts on grand final day. In fact, the Eagles’ win comes six years to the day since the Swans defeated Hawthorn by 10 points to win just their second flag in 80 years.
Josh Kennedy of the Eagles (AAP Image/Ben Macmahon)
With a twelve-year gap between their second, third and fourth flags (their first was in 1992), their fans will be hoping that they won’t have to wait until 2030 for their fifth flag to come.
They also remain undefeated in grand finals contested in an even year, a stark contrast to their record in odd years where they have lost on three occasions (1991, 2005 and 2015).
It also marked the third consecutive premiership won by a graduate from Alastair Clarkson’s school of coaching, after Luke Beveridge and Damien Hardwick led the Western Bulldogs and Richmond to flags in 2016 and last year, respectively.
Between his playing retirement in 2009 and becoming Eagles head coach in 2014, Simpson had spent four years as an assistant coach at Hawthorn, where he was part of the aforementioned 2013 flag.
It is also his fourth AFL premiership in any capacity, having featured in the North Melbourne sides that were victorious under then-coach Denis Pagan in 1996 and 1999.
Eagles head coach Adam Simpson (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Add on the hat-trick of flags the Hawks enjoyed between 2013-15, and this is the sixth consecutive premiership to feature Clarkson’s DNA on it.
As for the Pies, it was a heartbreaking end to what was a massive season of improvement, as they fell short of emulating what Richmond did twelve months ago, when they rose from 13th to capture the flag.
Last August, the future of coach Nathan Buckley, who led the Pies to two Grand Final defeats against the Brisbane Lions as captain in 2002-03, appeared uncertain, but the 2002 Norm Smith Medallist won a vote of confidence from the club’s board and had his contract extended by two seasons.
This year, he led his side to their best season since his first season as coach, 2012, finishing third at the end of the minor rounds before qualifying them for their first decider since 2011, and fifth since the turn of the century (excluding the 2010 draw).
However, their 27th defeat in a grand final sees them remain stranded on 15 premiership flags, one short of the joint-record held by Essendon (last premiership in 2000) and Carlton (1995).
The match attracted 100,022 people – just one more person than last year’s figure of 100,021, who saw Richmond defeat the Adelaide Crows by 48 points to break its’ 37-year premiership drought.
Because it will be Fremantle’s turn to play at home in Round 1, it would clear the decks for the West Coast Eagles to potentially host the grand final rematch at Optus Stadium as early as Round 1, in which they will also very likely unfurl their flag.
The ground has yet to host a Friday night match, so utilising this timeslot would be massive on both a commercial and financial perspective.
To finish off, congratulations to the West Coast Eagles for winning their fourth premiership, and especially to Adam Simpson and Shannon Hurn for masterminding a flag not many thought would head their way at the start of the season.
Commiserations to Collingwood, who had shown a lot of improvement to reach the grand final twelve months after finishing 13th, out of the finals for a fourth consecutive year.
Nathan Buckley. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
And that’s all she wrote for the 2018 season, which will go down as a season in which the Eagles overcame great adversity to mount the premiership dais for the first time since 2006.
The countdown has now begun in earnest to the 2019 season, which will start with Carlton hosting Richmond at the MCG on Thursday, March 21.
But before that, the third season of AFL Women’s, which has been revamped to accommodate the entry of the Geelong Cats and North Melbourne, gets underway with nine teams looking to dethrone the Western Bulldogs as the reigning premiers.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.
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