Picture if you will, an old fashioned reel-to-reel film projecting onto the big screen.

It counts down, numbers bouncing off the wall, reels clicking their way through  – 5-4-3-2-1 – before a career highlights package featuring modern day star Brad Sheppard begins. Its start point is draft night 2009 when Sheppard is presented with a West Coast Eagles guernsey by coach John Worsfold. 

The film starts in black and white. The quality of the vision is not as crisp as it could be, but minutes later transforms into glorious colour as he blossoms into one of the most adaptable and durable defenders in the game.

It’s on loop. Sheppard drifting back into a pack, throwing a fist at the footy as an avalanche of bodies comes his way. Then he’s tracking Robbie Gray, Charlie Cameron or Michael Walters, three of the smartest small forwards in the game, running the angles and denying them possession.

Or chasing Collingwood’s Jordan De Goey, clamping on a desperate tackle, preventing another opposition scoring opportunity.  Or it’s a trademark fold-back, reading the game and raking in a timely and considered intercept mark.

Through 216 games he has been a wonderful player for the Eagles in two distinct periods; the first under Worsfold when he was learning the art of football at the elite level and second under Adam Simpson when he evolved into one of the best defenders in the game.

It’s slightly quirky that the playing careers of Simpson and Sheppard narrowly avoided each other. Sheppard was drafted months after Simmo hung them up after 306 games with North Melbourne.

Simpson spent four years developing his coaching craft at Hawthorn; at the same time Sheppard was emerging from being a hopeful teenager who had been given an opportunity into a versatile member of the club’s defence.

When they came together in 2014 it was a timely union.

Seven seasons later that player-coach relationship is no more. Evidence once again that this game can turn. And turn quickly; emphasising what so many players in the past have uttered about careers ending suddenly.

Flashing back to Sheppard’s arrival at the club and 2009 draft night is crystal clear. Like it was yesterday.

The football rumour mill is always active and in the post season it swings into overdrive at the time of the national draft.

In lead-up to that particular ballot, with both WA clubs having selections in the first seven and some exciting local talent available, it was at full throttle.

There was much conjecture about the identity of the player West Coast had in their sights and the late mail was an athletic young defender from East Fremantle.

Brad Sheppard had good sporting lineage as his father Keith was an accomplished bowler in the local pennant cricket scene at a time when the WACA competition was as good as any league in the world. Blokes like Test opener Bruce Laird, bowling great Dennis Lillee and champion ‘keeper Rod Marsh often filtered back to play with their clubs.

Sheppard Snr was also a handy footballer for Perth, when the WAFL was similarly vibrant.

The emerging Sheppard, who was on the Eagles radar, was also the nephew of former Australian batsman Geoff Marsh, another sporting all-rounder who played five senior games with South Fremantle before opting to focus on cricket.

Brad Sheppard had been mentioned in most of the draft speculation and was certain to find an AFL home, but the temperature rose on the likelihood of him becoming an Eagle on draft eve.

As we reflect, the 2009 draft boasted some future stars – Dustin Martin at selection #3,  Ben Cunnington (#5), Gary Rowan (#6), Jake Melksham (#10), Nat Fyfe (#20), Travis Colyer (#26), Mitch Duncan (#28), Jack Gunston (#29) and Max Gawn (#34). Sheppard stands tall alongside them.

Now Sheppard’s career has formally reached its conclusion, the courageous defender left with little choice but to step away from the game at which he is so adept after suffering two concussions in the back half of the 2021 season.

It brings rise to sadness, but also cause to celebrate all that he has achieved.

If there was one season that best depicts the career of Sheppard it was 2015.

The Eagles lost key defenders Eric Mackenzie and Mitch Brown before round one had even been completed and it called for some coaching ingenuity.

Simpson and his cohorts developed a system that was labelled the Eagles web. Because they lacked key defenders, Sheppard and Shannon Hurn had to play tall in support of Jeremy McGovern and they played in a system that, simplistically defined, was a zone defence.

It was more complex than that, but that trio relied on their ability to read the game and intercept opposition attacking forays. They did it expertly.

Even after other clubs identified the method, they had trouble picking their way through it and Sheppard relished the role; defending as needed but playing with instinct and peeling off when it felt right.

The web was a key element in the Eagles working their way into the Grand Final against Hawthorn, having finished ninth in Simpson’s first year at the helm. Not surprisingly Sheppard was Player of the Finals.

He continued to build his reputation from that moment forward, finally recognised outside of the club for the qualities he possessed. Belatedly in 2020 he won his only All-Australian blazer and was also awarded the Chris Mainwaring Medal as best clubman.

He has been a wonderful servant of the Eagles, more than vindicating his selection at #7. This club is a great place to be, Shep made it even better.