The weight of a name

It was never going to be easy as an aspiring footballer growing up in WA with the surname Cable. Not if your father was the legendary Barry Cable. But Shane Cable navigated a way through the system to make his AFL debut for West Coast on a Friday night at the WACA Ground in round 12, 1989 against a Footscray side coached by Mick Malthouse.

It was West Coast’s first round 12 win and John Annear’s 50^th game for the club.

A 19-year-old wingman from WAFL club Perth, Cable was originally listed as an emergency but received a call-up when Chris Waterman was omitted for being late to a team meeting.

He had seven possessions in a 28-point win as Guy McKenna, Phil Scott and Peter Sumich took the Brownlow Medal votes and Sumich kicked eight goals in his ninth game.

Sadly, Cable never played again at AFL level despite topping the goal-kicking list at Perth in 1993 and 1995 and representing the Indigenous All-Stars in 1994.

Ten years later he even sat in as coach for East Perth when regular coach Warren Mahoney was so ill with the flu he could not speak.

A champ debuts

Queensland football was still getting used to AFL football in 1991. Without the strong history of the code in WA, and with the Brisbane Bears located at Carrara on the Gold Coast, it wasn’t exactly front page news every day.

Still, some news had filtered across the Nullarbor and the locals knew to look out for the big young fella making his AFL debut in round 12 when the West Coast Eagles headed to Carrara.

He was an 18-year-old man mountain, barely out of school, but already a WA State of Origin representative and on track to reach 50 WAFL games for South Fremantle later that year.

Glen Jakovich, champion centre half-back in the making, played mainly forward on debut in a side that was without No.1 goal-kicker Peter Sumich.

He didn’t disappoint, kicking two goals from 10 possessions as the Eagles led throughout and won 21.19 (145) to 14.9 (93). Peter Matera had 30 possessions and kicked three goals but had to be content with two Brownlow Medal votes behind Dean Irving, who had just seven possessions but dominated to such an extent in the ruck the Eagles enjoyed a 30-8 hit-out advantage.

Just as Shane Cable had played his first and last game in round 12 1989, Ian Dargie, a 10-gamer recruited from St Kilda, played his first and last Eagles game in round 12, 1991.

A ton for Lewis

Chris Lewis became the fifth Eagle to play 100 games for the club as they posted a 44-point win over North Melbourne at the MCG in round 12, 1992.

The son of Irwin Lewis, a notable scholar, sportsman, public servant and indigenous Australian artist, he was a product of Christ Church Grammar where he was such a good footballer in Year 10 the school relaxed normal rules whereby only students in Years 11-12 could play in the First XVIII.

Lewis was only 80 days beyond his 23^rd birthday when he posted his century, having already won the Club Champion Award and been selected in the AFL Team of the Year in 1990.

He was the club’s youngest 100-gamer at the time, and going on 28 years later he remains the sixth-youngest among the Eagles’ 69 100-game players, older only than Chad Morrison (22 years 66 days), Ben Cousins (22/77), Daniel Kerr (22/82), Glen Jakovich (22/99) and Chris Judd (22/255).

Lewis had 22 possessions and kicked a goal in his 100^th game as Dean Kemp (28 possessions, two goals) and Dwayne Lamb (22 possessions, two goals) took three and two Brownlow Medal votes respectively. Ex-Eagle Alex Ishchenko, in his seventh game for North after a stint with Brisbane, picked up one vote.

An epic rivalry

The Eagles’ rivalry with the Sydney Swans is nothing short of legendary. Headed by consecutive nail-biting finishes in the 2005 and 2006 grand finals for one flag each, it is a rivalry that has seen 11 of 51 games between the clubs decided by a kick or less.

Their first nail-biter was a three-point Swans win at the SCG in 1992, and in round 12, 1995 the Eagles extracted their revenge with a one-point win at Subiaco. Just.

The visitors led by 20 points at three-quarter time but were out-scored 1-1 to 4-2 by a fast-finishing home outfit, and just hung on despite five goals from Tony Lockett and thanks to three-vote effort from Chris Waterman, who led the Eagles’ possession count with 24.

This squared the nail-biter record between the clubs at 1-1. There after it has gone SESESEESS. The record is even 2-2 finals. The Eagles won the 2005 qualifying final by four points before losing the 2005 grand final by four, and in 2006 it was West Coast by two in Round 15, Sydney by one in the qualifying and West Coast by one in the grand final.

Career best for Ben

Ben Cousins had debuted in round 4, 1996 and started with a goal in his first seven games. He went -1-1-2-1-2-1 before missing out in round 11. But he more than atoned with an equal career-best five goals against StKilda at Subiaco in round 12.

Cousins, later to match his five-goal haul against Melbourne the following year, had 17 possessions to go with his five goals in a 33-point win to pick up his first Brownlow Medal votes – three of them.

On the way out

By 1997 Collingwood’s Victoria Park headquarters, hated by visiting teams for more than 100 years, was on the way out. With a capacity that didn’t stretch much past 25,000, it was only used to host interstate teams.

After losses in their first three visits, the Eagles had won there in 1993 and were not so disappointed to be drawn to play there again in 1997.

As it turned out, they would play three of the last seven games at Victoria Park, with Collingwood also to host Fremantle twice, Adelaide once and, in their last home game in round 22 of 1999, they would play Brisbane.

The Eagles faced the Pies in round 12, 1997 and after a torrid, low-scoring battle they kicked 3.2 to 1.1 in the final quarter to win by 16 points. Peter Matera, later to finish runner-up in the Brownlow Medal behind Robert Harvey after leading vote-getter Chris Grant was ruled ineligible due to suspension, picked up three votes for his game-high 27 possessions and a goal.

It was to prove a wonderful farewell tour for the club at one of the notoriously tough venues.

After Adelaide had lost to Collingwood in the first match at Victoria Park in 1997 West Coast’s win in round 12 was followed by a 100-point Fremantle loss. Then, in 1998, Fremantle lost by seven and West Coast won by 21, and in 1999 West Coast and Brisbane beat the home side by 36 and 42 points respectively.

Fifty for Fido

Phil Matera is six and a half years younger than brother Peter. When he debuted alongside Ben Cousins in 1996 it was Peter’s 122^nd game, and by the time of his first final in his 23^rd game in 1997 it was old brother’s 162^nd game.

By the time Phil Matera reached his 50^th game in round 12, 1999 the gap between the pair had stretched still further to 143 games, but by then it didn’t matter. Junior Matera was a star in his own right and celebrated with a 65-point win over Port Adelaide at Subiaco.

Phil Matera kicked three goals and Scott Cummings and Daniel Metropolis four apiece as the home side piled on 9.3 to 3.2 in the final term. Not to be outdone, older brother Peter had a game-high 30 possessions and kicked a goal to pick up two Brownlow Medal votes.

Phil’s three goals gave him 28 at what turned out to be the mid-point of a 24-game season, and by the time the Eagles had been ousted from the finals by Carlton he had posted his second half century of the season.

With 51 goals he ranked equal ninth on an AFL goal-kicking list headed by teammate and Coleman Medallist Scott Cummings with 95.

It was a star-studded list, with Cummings followed by Matthew Lloyd (87), Tony Lockett (82), Wayne Carey (76), Tony Modra (71), Matthew Richardson (67), Darren Jarman (58) and Lance Whitnall (55), but Matera had stamped himself as the No.1 small forward in the League. 

A bargain price…plus, plus

Dean Kemp gave wonderful return on investment to the Eagles from the moment he walked into the club after the 1989 AFL Draft, although to be totally fair the anticipated return on what was effectively selection #117 wasn’t exactly through the roof.

Indeed, more than 30 years on it remains one of football’s mysteries and one part of possibly the greatest draft haul in Eagles history.

Forgotten? How could you? It was such an Eagles highlight. Such a bizarre draft.

After trading in Peter Wilson from Richmond and snaring Ryan Turnbull and Peter Mann with two pre-draft concession picks the Eagles delighted in claiming Peter Matera at #4. He had been overlooked by Richmond, Footscray and StKilda, who instead took Anthony Banik, Matthew Croft and Jody Arnol.

Banik, from Won Wron Woodside in Gippsland, played 49 games for the Tigers. Croft, from Morkalla near Mildura, gave the Dogs a respectable 186 games, and Arnol, from North Hobart, played just 13 games for the Saints. Matera played 253 games.

The next six picks to complete the top 10 played a combined 125 games for the club that invested so heavily in them, and 350 games in total.

Brad Rowe played 14 games for Brisbane and 87 overall and Mark Brayshaw, now chief of the AFL Coach’s Association, played 32 for North. Stephen Edgar played 14 for Carlton, Brad Tunbridge 50 for Sydney and Dale Kickett 15 for Fitzroy and 181 overall split between five clubs, including West Coast. Collingwood’s Daryl Groves never played.

With pick #50 the Eagles snared Dean Irving, who played 43 games in blue and gold and 66 in total, and at #64 Tony Evans was a bargain. He played 108 games and won two flags.

At #78 West Coast drafted Stephen Schwerdt. He never moved to Perth and later played 25 games for Adelaide before a career in high performance coaching which took him to the Gold Coast Suns and now SA Cricket.

The bargain-hunting Eagles draft team picked 156-game dual premiership player Brett Heady at #92, and gleefully accepted 242-game dual premiership player Ashley McIntosh in return for pick #112 in a draft which went to 116 players.

But there was more to come. West Coast had three post-draft picks and with the first of them, effectively #117 overall, they snared Kemp. A 243-game two-time flag winner, club champion, Norm Smith Medallist, all-Australian, and an AFL Hall of Famer in the making.

Then they added Tony Begovich, who played nine games for West Coast and five for Sydney, and Brad Gwilliam, a four-gamer at West Coast and Richmond.

The door had barely shut behind Kemp when he arrived at the Eagles before he was a star. His annual game count from 1990 went 23-23-25-17-22-23-21-22-17-22-20.

But in round 12 2001, when he was co-captain of the club with Ben Cousins, it ended suddenly. The cumulative effect of numerous head knocks prompted him to retire after an 81-point loss at Docklands to a Collingwood side coached by his long-time mentor Mick Malthouse.

Cousins did his best to give his co-captain a better send-off with 34 possessions and three goals but he was chaired from the ground without the winning exit that his career deserved.

Kemp played 243 games including a club record 25 finals and had 4901 possessions which at the time was a club record. Eighteen years later he is still ranked fourth all-time behind Matt Priddis, Cousins and Andrew Gaff.

What a start!!

Quinten Lynch made his debut in round 12, 2002 and immediately played a key role in a heart-stopping one-point win over Carlton at Princes Park.

The Eagles trailed by four points at three-quarter time and 10 points when Simon Beaumont goaled for the Blues early in the last quarter. Lynch, who had kicked his first goal in the first quarter, replied for the Eagles with his second.

Lance Whitnall pushed the deficit back out to 11 points but after nine scoreless minutes Peter Matera and Adam Hunter put the visitors in front. There was still five minutes to play but the Eagles got home 12.17 (89) to 12.16 (88). Ben Cousins was judged best afield with 29 possessions.