During this week there was cause to call on a local tradie to do a little work for us at Mineral Resources Park.
Lee, who boasts a delightful English twang, is something of a passive West Coast Eagles fan. He has been in this country for a few years and has established a nice family picture hanging business.
He doesn’t really understand the intricacies of the AFL’s equalisation measures like the draft, salary cap and soft cap, but in principle he likes the system. He’s an English Premier League devotee and save for the miracle of 2015-16 when Leicester City won the title, the Championship has been dominated by a handful of clubs.
The wealthy organisations – Manchester City and United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea – have deeper pockets than their rivals and can flip from a bad season to being contenders in a few months by shopping wisely on the international football market.
Lee likes that in the AFL, theoretically at least, every club should get the chance to taste success. That the draft, rather than a cheque book, gives clubs first access to the best talent.
“No brown paper bags?” he enquired in relation to the salary cap. “Not anymore. Everything spent in the footy department is heavily scrutinised by the AFL.” He tilted his head and nodded.
If this conversation had run a little deeper, perhaps the example of the system at work could have been explained in one fixture – the Eagles versus North Melbourne game at Optus Stadium tomorrow.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that these two teams competed in one of the great finals of the modern era.
It was the 2015 preliminary final at a heaving Subiaco Oval. A sprinkling of a little more than 43,000 fans crammed into league headquarters – a number that seems almost absurdly inadequate in this era with a shiny new home ground and a capacity of more than 60,000.
The game, itself, was epic and is embedded in the minds of many Eagles fans for an iconic moment that turned the encounter on its head. West Coast had been out-played by North and held goal-less in the first term, the battle to hit the scoreboard continuing in the second.
About mid-term Josh Kennedy and Scott Thompson, two modern-day warriors collided heavily at half-forward. Kennedy was first to his feet, gathered the Sherrin and kicked an amazing team-lifting the goal. The Eagles were on their way to a 25-point win.
The Grand Final against Hawthorn did not go to plan, but the Eagles were in the window.
West Coast would play finals in each of the next five seasons, culminating in the 2018 premiership.
North played finals in 2016, finishing eighth after losing an elimination final to Adelaide. That was to be the final time the Roos would see club legends Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo, who had been recruited from St Kilda, represent their club.
They were not offered contracts for the 2017 season. In one respect North’s loss was the Eagles’ gain as Petrie joined his good mate Adam Simpson in the west and remains an integral part of the club as well-being and development manager.
North has not played finals since that loss to Adelaide and this year will mark the fourth year in succession they will have occupied one of the bottom two rungs on the premiership table.
After the 2018 triumph, the Eagles lost the first semi-final to Geelong in 2019 and were then beaten in the COVID-affected season of 2020 by Collingwood.
The last two years, in particular, have been challenging as they have kept the Kangaroos company in the bottom portion. Tomorrow, barring a draw, one of these clubs will taste the all-too-rare ecstasy of victory.
Fingers crossed it’s the blue and gold. Lee would enjoy that.
