Hart racks up 150 games
Bruce Rock, a small town 240km east of Perth in the wheatbelt region, is famous as the birth place of prominent Australian artist John de Burgh Perceval AO. It won the WA ‘tidy town’ award in 2003 and was home to Eagles defender/rover David Hart in his youth.
He was born in Victoria but grew up in Bruce Rock before making his way to the AFL via WAFL clubs West Perth and South
Fremantle and making his debut in the club’s fifth game in 1987.
A member of the 1994 premiership side, he played his 150th game in round 16, 1995 to earn life membership. And he did it collecting his second and last three-vote rating in the Brownlow Medal with just 11 possessions in a 58-point win over St Kilda at Waverley.
At the end of 1996, as the Eagles celebrated 10 years in the AFL, Hart was named in the official Team of the Decade. It was:
B: David Hart, Michael Brennan, Ashley McIntosh
HB: Guy McKenna, Glen Jakovich, John Worsfold
C: Peter Matera, Dean Kemp, Chris Mainwaring
HF: Brett Heady, Mitchell White, Craig Turley
F: Chris Lewis, Peter Sumich, Tony Evans
R: Ryan Turnbull, Don Pyke, Dwayne Lamb.
INT: Chris Waterman, Steve Malaxos, Peter Wilson.
Four from four but …
West Coast made it four wins from four derbies when they beat Fremantle 12.10 (82) to 7.6 (48) at Subiaco in round 16, 1996. Guy McKenna led the charge with three Brownlow votes as Andrew Donnelly had 27 possessions and Chad Morrison kicked three goals. It was just as well they won. It would be 2004 before they won their next round 16 game.
Three votes in a loss
It’s not often a player in a losing side picks up three Brownlow Medal votes these days. Especially not when you lose by 37 points as the Eagles did to Collingwood at Docklands in round 16, 2006.
But after West Coast went down 13.12 (90) to 19.13 (127) the umpires found it impossible to go past Daniel Kerr’s 30 possessions (20 contested) and a goal plus 12 clearances.
It was in a year in which Kerr finished third in Brownlow Medal voting with 22 despite missing four home-and-away games. Only Sydney’s Adam Goodes, who won his second medal with 26 votes, and the Bulldogs’ Scott West, who polled 23 votes, were ahead of him. And they played every game.
Kerr, ineligible to win anyway after a one-match suspension for a strike on Hawthorn’s Sam Mitchell, also missed one game with a virus and two games (and a final) with a calf strain.
He was more than happy regardless when the Eagles won the 2006 premiership, but in the cool light of day he may have wondered ‘if only …’
Kerr polled most Brownlow votes in 2005-06 combined yet finished empty-handed.
Runner-up by a vote to teammate Ben Cousins in 2005 when he polled 19 votes, Kerr totalled 41 votes over the years in which West Coast and Sydney played in consecutive grand finals.
West, fourth in 2005 with 17 votes, had a combined total of 40 votes, and Chris Judd, seventh in the vote count with 15 in 2005 and fourth with 21 votes in 06, was next with a combined 36 votes. Goodes and Cousins polled a combined 33 votes.
Kerr and West polled 10 three-vote rankings over the two years, with Goodes voted best afield eight times, Judd seven and Cousins six.
If nothing else it identified how different the 3-2-1 voting system of the Brownlow is to the club best and fairest voting system in which Kerr finished eighth in 2005 and sixth in 2006. Also, when he was runner-up to Cousins in the 2002 Club Champion Award he polled only nine votes in the Brownlow to rank equal 30th in the count.
A Gaff century
In his first season in the AFL in 2011 Andrew Gaff played the first five games as an 18-year-old before he was dropped. After one more game in the AFL side he was left out again. He missed seven before playing the last 11, right through to the preliminary final.
By the time he got to his 100th game in round 16, 2015 he hadn’t missed another game. It was his 94th game in a row as West Coast travelled to Docklands to meet Collingwood.
They were second on the ladder and favorites to beat the seventh-placed Pies, but still it was a special celebration as they won 11.21 (87) to 7.14 (56) despite a 38-possession three-vote performance from Steele Sidebottom.
Gaff, the 61st member of what is now a 69-man 100-game club, had a team-high 34 possessions for two votes in what was his 94th game in a row.
He stretched his run of consecutive games to 113 before concussion saw him miss round 10, 2016.
This is the Eagles record for most games in a row and one of only two triple-figure runs, with Dean Cox playing 104 games in a row. Next best have been Glen Jakovich (96), Quinten Lynch (95) and Brad Sheppard (95).
Life membership for Butler
Sam Butler played 13 seasons and 166 games with the Eagles and enjoyed plenty of highlights. Most notably 15 finals, three grand finals and the 2006 premiership, while a three-vote game of 28 possessions and two goals in a big win at the Gabba in 2015 a personal standout.
But a game in which he had just 15 possessions was right up there in the special moments.
It was round 16, 2016 when West Coast beat North Melbourne by 32 points at Subiaco. And it was Butler’s 150th AFL game, qualifying him for life membership of the club.
It was a wonderful achievement for a player who had more than his share of injuries and only once played 20 games in a season – in his 12th year in 2016.
It was a double celebration, with Sharrod Wellingham playing his 150th AFL game the same afternoon. After 92 games for Collingwood including the 2010 premiership, he went on to play 79 games for West Coast.
Derby #50
The 50th WA derby between West Coast and Fremantle was played at Optus Stadium in Round 16 last year, and it was a day that will be remembered fondly by West Coast fans.
Not only did they enjoy their third-biggest win in derby history when they blitzed the Dockers 19.8 (122) to 2.19 (31), but they held the Dockers to the lowest derby score.
It was only the second time in West Coast history that they restricted the opposition to two goals, and the first time since 1991 when they held Melbourne to 2.8 (20) at Subiaco – the lowest opposition score on record.
West Coast blitzed their cross-town rivals 8-2 to 0-5 in the second quarter on route to their big win, with third-gamer Jarrod Cameron helping himself to four goals. Luke Shuey, Andrew Gaff and Brad Sheppard took the votes as Jamie Cripps and Jack Darling also bagged four goals.
