Norwood has trumped North Adelaide in the SANFL grand final by 40 points at AAMI Stadium
NATHAN Bassett has described the Redlegs as the greatest team he's ever been involved with after what could be his final game as Norwood coach.
NATHAN Bassett has described the history-making Redlegs as the greatest team he's ever been involved with after what could be his final game as Norwood coach.
Bassett became the first man since Tom Leahy in 1922-23 to coach Norwood to back-to-back premierships with a 40-point win over North Adelaide in front of 36,685 fans in AAMI Stadium's farewell.
The former Crow, who is contracted to coach Norwood next year but makes no secret of his ambition to land an AFL assistant job, said yesterday's win changed nothing.
"No idea," he said when asked about his future. "The next couple of days will be good."
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Yesterday he did it with a team of all-sorts - an unusual mix of players who have combined to become the SANFL's most dominant outfit since the Central District era.
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In Norwood's team were three teenagers including James Aish who has two premierships by the age of 17, and a 34-year-old veteran who won the Jack Oatey Medal.
There was ruckman Sam Baulderstone who weighed 140kg while playing in the Great Southern Football League last year, and Liam Davis who was plucked from the amateur league after Bassett played a game with him at Houghton Districts.
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Then there was the AFL class of Magarey Medallist Matt Thomas, Crows midfielder Mitch Grigg and Power defender Lewis Stevenson.
"That's what makes it so special. If you're in an AFL club most guys are kind of around the same age," Bassett said.
"It's so nice to see 34-year-olds interact and work with 16-year-olds and that's what makes it so special."
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Bassett revealed Norwood's entire reserves team trained for the whole finals series despite missing the major round, just so they could support their senior teammates.
"Their attitude to improve, the unity of the group, the care for the people who weren't and were here today," he said.
"We had our whole reserves team train all the way through the finals for another four weeks, right to the point where I sent out a message on Friday saying 'can you just do the warm up and our kick-ins at the start of training and that's it'.
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"It's a horrible message to send to guys who have given so much but we needed them there on the Friday. They're terrific people, they care about each other and love each other's company and I can't speak highly enough of them."
Asked to compare yesterday's win to last year's drought-breaking triumph over West Adelaide, Bassett said:
"Last year was relief in a way because I'd been involved in footy for such a long time without winning a senior premiership," he said.
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"It's just nice to back it up.
"The guys had a great year and such a strong side, there's some little bits about this team that make it hard to follow up so to have not won this year would have been very disappointing.
"The Norwood Footy Club is a bit of a 'good time club' in some ways, make the finals and kind of accept not quite good enough, where as we want to be relentless and keep winning."