Preliminary Final weekend is certainly for the purists of the game and always produces a moment or moments that stay with you for a lifetime.
Well done to The Dockers last night. There was a curious stat I heard this morning that Freo have only won three quarters in all their three finals this year.
I don’t know what that means for the Granny but I doubt they can rest on that record going in against either The Hawks of Lions.
It definitely looked like The Swans were physically and emotionally cooked in the last quarter after the past few weeks. Congratulations to them for reassuring the footy world that The Bloods culture is alive and thriving.
Personally I can say that in my 30+ years of playing and coaching I was never part of a losing prelim team. No bad hey?
I did however lose four grand finals as a coach which still haunt me in the middle of the night, like a Vietnam Veteran hearing the Channel 7 chopper!
Funnily enough of all the finals I played in, from Wagga to Brisbane to the VFA and WA country, there’s one sliding doors moment that I will always remember fondly.
The game was the 1993 VFA Preliminary Final at a sodden, foul day at Moorabbin.
My team Werribee played an all-conquering Springvale. We had beaten Prahran in a semi -final and were beaten by minor premiers Port Melbourne in the qualifying final.
Springvale had disposed of Box Hill I think, then Prahran to face us off for the right to play Port in the Granny.
We were old and slow compared to Springvale. We had half a dozen players heading close to or beyond thirty whereas Springvale were loaded with future premiership players and AFL draftees. The heavy ground probably helped us but they were full of run and confidence.
The tides of the game changed a few times and heading into the last we were up by two points. It did feel however that Springvale were fresher in the last quarter. Both myself and fellow midfielder Rod McPherson had missed the previous week’s final with a nasty virus and were absolutely spent.
At the 28 ½ minute mark we were nine points down. Then our champion full forward Jack Aziz gets a free and goals. It’s three points, seconds left and the ball goes flat! New ball arrives and there’s one centre bounce left.
Centre bounce, and Springvale’s Doug Koop, desperate inside a mad scramble to kick the ball, gets it smothered by a nuggety and very handsome centreman whose heroics have never been recognised by his peers despite numerous attempts for acknowledgement at reunions!
Anyway the real hero is Matt Power, the boy from Riddell’s Creek, a one pub town in the beautiful Macedon Ranges.
Our Captain Coach Donald McDonald ‘mungs’ the ball toward half forward where Matty anticipates better than his opponent and gathers the ball off the deck like silk.
He then in the same movement, understanding the time, swivels to the left and delivers a forty metre pass laces out to Aziz on the lead.
The siren goes while the kick is in the air and the ball crosses the goal line teasingly out of the reach of Springvale’s champion ruckman Simon Clarke. It’s Jack’s 96th goal for the year and we’re in the Granny!
I had the pleasure of a catch up with Matty today in Ballarat. His two daughters were playing in netball grand finals for Sunbury and his son also plays footy for them.
He is a very enthusiastic and funny man. We reflected on another sliding doors moment when he arrived at Werribee in early 1993.
He had been drafted by Melbourne as an 18YO but was delisted after a year or so and played for Benalla then moved to Melbourne where a few VFA clubs were keen on him.
It was pre-season and the list for 1993 was being finalised. Matty trained on that first night then Donald and the coaches were determined to put him through some speed and agility tests.
Donald asked me to join them as a representative of the aging brigade in the team. He wanted my opinion on whether we should sign him up or not.
I likened Matty to the weasel that terrorises Foghorn Leghorn, slippery, hungry and very fast. After five mins observing him tear up the Chirnside Park turf I simply looked at Donald and said, “yes please”.
Matty is a career builder and one of seven kids. With me being one of nine we share a love of simpler times when life was uncluttered and you got up to plenty of harmless mischief.
These weren’t Dickensian stories of waifs surviving on the streets because we consider ourselves lucky to have had loving parents, but overcoming adversity was essential.
Food is always a subject of our conversations. With so many mouths to feed in those days, pinching a sibling’s tucker was well practised activity that would often lead to a brawl. You quickly learned initiative and guile.
Leave your dinner plate unattended at the Wilson and Power homes at your peril!
Matty was a fine player and has always turned up at our reunions. His little bit of brilliance in that prelim honed from thousands of hours practice enabled a prelim win and a subsequent first ever premiership for Werribee the following week.
This is a photo of Matty and I after the controversial and rather violent 1993 Grand Final at Princes Park. Note the game ball under Matty’s jumper. Always using his initiative and guile!
Below is a youtube video highlights package from the game. If you just want to see the bit I mentioned previously, start at around the 19 minute mark. If you’d like to see the author giving the most succinct, and totally unnecessary answer bordering on health and safety advice, to a question from an ABC reporter, go to the very end.
