All too 'Ezy'

Eric Mackenzie, known to his teammates as ‘Ezy’, is well remembered for two standout individual moments in a wonderful career of team-first football.

In chapter one of “Big Easy’s Special Moments”, there was his herculean defensive play in the closing seconds of regulation time in the 2017 elimination final against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval, which set the scene for Luke Shuey’s extra-time match-winning goal.

With the game on the line, Mackenzie gathered a loose ball and rather than conceding what would have been a match-losing rushed behind or risking a deliberate out of bounds free-kick, he slammed himself into the behind post.

The ball fell loose and, lying on the ground, Mackenzie dragged the ball towards him, touching it to the behind post to win a boundary throw-in and send the game into extra time.

It’s the sort of extraordinary play that is or should be the envy of every full-back in the game.

In chapter two of “Big Ezy’s Special Moments”, there was his match-winning goal against St Kilda at Docklands in round 11, 2013 which was something of which rival custodians only dream.

It was Mackenzie’s 88^th AFL game. In 87 games he’d had statistics that included 996 possessions, 177 tackles, 591 defensive one-percenters and 50 contested marks.  

He’d even stepped out of full-back mode long enough to play ruckman and have 25 hit-outs. Likewise, to play midfielder and pick up 23 clearances, and to play wingman to have 18 running bounces. And against all natural instincts he had snuck forward to take one solitary mark inside the Eagles’ forward 50m zone and kick one career goal.

That was before round 11, 2013 when he tripled his career goals tally and clinched one of the great wins in West Coast history.

So special was it that Mackenzie is the headline story for this week’s flashback series, which looks at the Best of the Eagles in round 11.

West Coast were 10^th on the ladder going into the match and in danger of losing touch with the top eight. The last thing they needed at the mid-point of the season was to drop a game to a side 16^th on the ladder.

It was Sam Butler’s 100^th game and Blayne Wilson’s AFL debut, but things weren’t going to script when the Eagles trailed at every change. It was three points, 12 points and 13 points. West Coast 7.9 to St Kilda 9.10 at three-quarter time.

They rallied in the fourth quarter, kicking the first two goals through Dean Cox and Jack Darling, and after seven minutes scores were level at 65 points apiece.

Stephen Milne goaled for the Saints followed quickly by Matt Priddis for the Eagles. Level at 71.

Priddis kicked another and Milne followed for the Saints. Level at 77. Still 13 minutes to play.

Rhys Stanley and Leigh Montagna missed kickable shots for the home side but still they were two points up. Then one point after a rushed behind for the visitors.

The clocked ticked past 27 minutes in a quarter that would run 30 when Beau Maister, formerly Beau Wilkes and a former Eagle in his second season and 17^th game for St Kilda, marked 30m out on a tough angle.

Maister, three-times a rookie draftee to West Coast who played 23 games for the club in seven years, had the game on his boot. Standing on the mark was his direct opponent, former teammate and good friend Mackenzie.

He sliced it right. The Eagles were still alive as Shannon Hurn prepared to kick in.

There was only one play. He kicked long to the centre circle and whether by good luck or good management it spilled off hands from Nic Naitanui. Watching the replay repeatedly doesn’t tell you whether it was a very good tap-on or not, but regardless the ball fell to Matt Rosa.

Running forward of centre, with no players inside the Eagles 50, he kicked long to space.

Mackenzie and Maister, running from the opposite end of the ground, led the long chase before Maister stumbled slightly and fell.

Later it was revealed that he had badly torn his hamstring, but it didn’t matter. Mackenzie calmly gathered the ball in the pocket, ran to the edge of the square and banged it through for the winning goal.

Coach John Worsfold later said he wouldn't even dream of Mackenzie booting goals and said he had "no idea" how he got into position to kick the match-winner.

In an SGIO Top Moment video posted on the Eagles website, various teammates recounted the moment when the 25-year-old fullback became an unlikely goal-kicking hero.

First, vice-captain Scott Selwood: “As Razzle (Darren Glass) and Easy like to do, they got on their high horse and ran forward never expecting to kick a goal. They just do it to annoy their opponents,” Selwood said.

“Then to everyone’s surprise they see Easy running into an open goal inside 50 …. He dropped a couple of blokes off along the way. It was an awesome moment and a great win to be part of.”

Andrew Gaff recalled the moments immediately after the match-winner. “He (Mackenzie) wasn’t shy with his celebration at all. He was jumping around fist-pumping everyone. It was very unlike Ezy … he definitely let everyone know he’d kicked the winning goal,” Gaff said.

Fellow defender Will Schofield was a little more descriptive. “He did a little shimmy … he did a little S-bend … and he slammed it home. And didn’t he give it to the crowd,” Schofield said.

Luke Shuey joked that he wasn’t happy to come off the ground and learn that while he was goalless the fullback had kicked two goals, while Brad Sheppard, also playing back at the time, was more appreciative.

 “For Ezy to take off like he did, to back his endurance and his leg speed … it was a special moment … such an inspirational and team-lifting goal … great reward for the effort he puts in on and off the track,” Sheppard said.

Even Jacob Brennan got in on the reflections but preferred instead to focus on the Eagles’ seventh goal shortly before three-quarter time. “He (Mackenzie) kicked a ripper to win the game for us but nobody remembered his first goal. He’d only kicked one goal coming into the game and he kicked two in one afternoon.

“Some skinny half back hit him with a nice short pass. He took a mark on the lead overhead and slotted it from 50,” Brennan detailed, failing to mention that the skinny half back was in fact him or note that the mark was Mackenzie’s second inside forward 50 in his career.

But the final words belonged to Mackenzie.

“One minute I was standing on the mark and my man (Maister) kicks a point. I thought I had to make up for that. In all my junior career I’d never kicked any really important goals so it was pretty unbelievable really,” he said.

“He (Maister) was one of my good mates from the club and I thought I’d take him on a run down to the other end. He did his hammy which wasn’t great, but the worst bit was having to try to run back … I was stuffed.”

And delightfully so. West Coast won 12.12 (84) to 11.14 (80) and for the only time in his 147-game career Mackenzie was a multiple goal-kicker. In 30 minutes he’d kicked two-sevenths of his career goal tally.

His double was equal second behind only Jack Darling’s three on the Eagles goal-kicking sheet as Matt Priddis, with 27 possessions and two goals, picked up three Brownlow Medal votes.

Maister, who had also kicked two goals, didn’t play again in 2013 and finished his career with four games in 2014. Mackenzie went on to finish second in the Eagles Club Champion Award and he won a spot in the 40-man All-Australian squad. He won the John Worsfold Medal in 2014, when he beat Priddis, the 2014 Brownlow Medallist, retained his position in the All-Australian squad, and shared the captaincy following Darren Glass’ mid-season retirement.

Round 11 by the numbers

The aggregate win/loss tally had been positive from Round 1 to Round 10, with year-by-year win counts of 23-17-21-20-16-19-19-22-21-17. There were two byes in Round 5, one bye in Rounds 1-3-8-9 and one draw in Rounds 3-5.

But in Round 11, notionally the halfway mark of the season, for the first time the Eagles recorded a negative win/loss tally. It was 14 wins, one draw and 16 losses, with two byes.

Surprisingly, they had only five wins and a draw from 13 round 11 games at Subiaco before a 2-0 mark at the new Optus Stadium.

They were 2-1 at the MCG and 1-0 at Waverley, but otherwise had a negative record in Victoria, going 0-1 at Whitten Oval, Windy Hill and Princes Park. They are 1-1 at the SCG, 1-0 at Football Park and 0-1 at Carrara

They were a positive 2-1 against Richmond, St.Kilda and Sydney, 1-0 against Carlton and Port Adelaide, 2-2 against Collingwood and 1-1 against Melbourne and Gold Coast. But they were on the wrong side of the ledger against Geelong (0-2), North Melbourne (0-2), Brisbane (0-1), Essendon (1-2) and the Western Bulldogs (1-2 with a draw). They’ve never played in round 11 against Adelaide, Fremantle, GWS, Hawthorn and the now defunct Fitzroy.