Twenty years on, St Kilda’s Jamie Shanahan still hasn’t watched a replay of the 1997 grand final
TWENTY years after Adelaide Crow Darren Jarman torched him for a VFL-AFL record five goals in the final quarter of the 1997 grand final, Jamie Shanahan has still not watched a replay of the game.
JAMIE Shanahan has still not watched a replay of the 1997 AFL grand final.
Twenty years after Darren Jarman kicked a record five goals on him in the last quarter to lead Adelaide to its first flag, Shanahan said he has never wanted to relive the agony of a game gone horribly wrong.
“I’m sure the Adelaide boys will remember every minute of that game vividly but when you lose you tend not to rehash it, so thankfully it fades a bit in your memory,’’ Shanahan told The Advertiser.
“I left the Saints at the end of that year to join Melbourne and I think the St Kilda boys might have watched the replay as a group but I haven’t seen it.
“I wouldn’t leave the room if it was on but it’s not something that I have sought out to watch either.’’
Hard-as-nails full back Shanahan’s dream of winning a grand final — and just St Kilda’s second premiership — were shattered 20 years ago when the brilliant Jarman ran riot in the final quarter of the last game of the season at the MCG.
Trailing by 13 points at half-time, the Crows, with Norm Smith Medallist Andrew McLeod dominating in the midfield, started taking control in the third term.
The exquisitely-skilled Jarman, who had already won an AFL premiership with Hawthorn in 1991, then wove his magic, kicking a VFL-AFL record five goals in the final term — giving him six for the match — to power Adelaide to its first premiership.
Shanahan — renowned as a tough, dour defender who was hard to beat one-one-one and conceded an average of just 1.6 goals a game that year — was led a merry-dance by Jarman on the biggest stage of all.
His nightmare quarter unfairly defined a man who played 162 AFL games (125 for the Saints from 1992-97 and 37 for the Demons in 1998-99) and was one of the best full backs of his era.
Now 49, Shanahan has a philosophical take on 20 minutes of madness when Jarman took over the MCG.
“If you play in the backline long enough you are going to get goals kicked on you at some point,’’ he said.
“You just do your best and you rely on some help from teammates as well. Some days that all comes together and some days, like the grand final, it doesn’t.’’
Shanahan, who was playing on Jarman only because star Adelaide full forward Tony Modra missed the grand final after shredding his anterior cruciate ligament in the two-point preliminary final win against the Western Bulldogs, knew early in the last quarter that he was in for a rugged finish.
“My turning point, I remember it distinctly,’’ said Shanahan, 11cm taller and 10kg heavier but far less nimble than Jarman.
“Jarman, who started in the midfield at centre bounces and then worked forward where I picked him up, led towards the Members Pavilion early in the last quarter and I thought I was in a pretty good spot to have him covered.
“McLeod had the ball on the wing and, with little pressure on him, he waited and waited (for Jarman to find space on the lead), he bounced the ball, stopped, zigged and zagged, and eventually was able to get the ball to ‘Jars’.
“I was standing on the mark thinking to myself that if that’s the way the ball is going to come into him in this last quarter then I’m in a bit of trouble.
“Then there was an iffy free kick (to Jarman) that went against me, one that could easily have been let go, he kicked a goal and it made me think that maybe things weren’t going the right way here.
“Then it all went pear-shaped.’’
With Jarman bagging five goals in the blink of an eye, Adelaide kicked eight goals without a miss to four in the final term to win by 31 points.
Shanahan said while Jarman’s last quarter was “a pretty fair effort’’ the Crows’ run from defence also proved decisive in the win.
“Shane Ellen kicked four of his five goals lining up at half-back and running downfield and (defender) Peter Caven also got one, so that didn’t help our cause either,’’ he noted.
Shanahan said that while the high-flying Modra — Adelaide’s greatest goalkicker with 440 — was a great player, his absence made the Crows’ attack less predictable and tougher to stop.
Jarman said Shanahan was the wrong match-up for him and that he feels empathy for the hard-nosed backman because of the flak he has copped for the last quarter horror show.
“He’s a terrific guy and it’s not his fault that St Kilda lost,’’ Jarman said.
“His midfield let him down in that last quarter and he wasn’t the right match-up for me, so Stan (Saints coach Stan Alves) got that one wrong.
“Physically he was big but he wasn’t nimble and I was able to read the ball better and break away from him.
“Things went my way in that last term — it was the best quarter of my life — and unfortunately for ‘Shanners’ he was on the end of it.
“But, as I said, you can’t blame him for the loss. There was a lot more to it than that.’’
The grand final was to be Shanahan’s last match for the Saints.
andrew.capel@news.com.au