Former Port Adelaide captain Dom Cassisi recounts being chaired off after Jay Schulz’s goalkicking heroics in his final match
Power great Dom Cassisi recalls his final game for the club, in 2014 – where a late goal from sharpshooter Jay Schulz against Melbourne ensured the former skipper would enter retirement as a winner.
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Dom Cassisi says he couldn’t have wished for the ball to be in better hands.
“In our team, at that time, you wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to have it,’’ the former Port Adelaide captain said of the day Jay Schulz sent him into retirement as a winner.
“Schulzy’s kicking technique and accuracy was elite, so I was confident he was going to kick the goal.’’
The fourth-highest goalkicker in Power history did not let its popular midfielder down.
With 111 seconds left on the clock and Port, chasing a second consecutive finals appearance under new coach Ken Hinkley, trailing lowly Melbourne by three points in a dour, seesawing, round 18 contest at Adelaide Oval in 2014, Schulz was the money man.
For the first time in his stellar career, the Power’s superboot kicked the clutch, matchwinning goal from a set shot from 35 metres to send the club’s fans wild and give Cassisi the ending he deserved after a 228-game career which, at age 31, was brought to a screaming halt by a chronic right knee injury.
“Me and Kenny were talking through the year and it got to the point where I just couldn’t get up for every game,’’ 2004 premiership player Cassisi recalled this week.
“He said we could work it where I just played the home games but that still wasn’t giving me enough time to recover.
“I was struggling and while my mind and heart wanted me to keep going I had to listen to my body.”
Forced to pull the pin on his career, Cassisi, who captained the Power from 2009 to 2012, was given a farewell game against the Demons as Port was stuck in a mid-season form slump after winning 10 of its first 11 games.
It had lost three on the trot to slump from first to fifth before meeting Melbourne in a Sunday afternoon game.
All was going swimmingly for Port and Cassisi when the home side – ignited by second-year midfield bull Ollie Wines – raced to a five-goal lead midway through the second quarter.
But then things started going pear-shaped.
With onballers Dom Tyson and captain Nathan Jones, who had 63 disposals and 13 clearances between them, seizing control the Demons hit the front in the third quarter.
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The Power regained the lead only for Melbourne to snatch it back with 5:56 left following two goals in a minute from Rohan Bail and Tyson.
Then, up stepped Schulz.
He outbodied close-checking opponent Lynden Dunn in a marking contest following some good build-up work from Matthew Broadbent and Kane Cornes and then, in typically-cool fashion, slotted a major from the southeastern pocket of Adelaide Oval.
Schulz – who booted 275 goals in 123 games for Port from 2010-16 and had a reputation as a Deadeye Dick in front of the sticks – said he had never been so nervous kicking for goal.
“Lining up my right leg was shaking a bit,’’ he said after the game.
“I just thank god that it just came off all right and went through.
“Standing there holding the ball I was thinking ‘just go through for Dom, just go through for Dom’. Lucky enough it did.
“People like Dom don’t come along every day and I’m just really glad that we could get it done for him.’’
Cassisi – drafted at pick 50 from WAFL club East Fremantle in 2000 – had 14 disposals in his final game and was chaired from the ground by Schulz and Cornes alongside a guard of honour formed by Power and Demons players.
Port, which had been scheduled to play Melbourne at the MCG this Sunday before the 2020 season was on put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, would go on to play in the preliminary final, losing to Hawthorn.
“It was nice to go out with a win because the thing you love the most about playing footy at any level is the changerooms after a win,’’ said Cassisi, who is now managing director of finance brokers Funding Options.
“To be able to experience that in my last game and be able to soak it all in again with teammates and volunteers that I’d spent so much time with, I was able to walk out with a smile on my face.
“We went down the race, Kenny spoke to the players in the lecture theatre and then we all cracked a beer.
“To sit in the rooms with your mates after a 15-year career and have a beer with them, that’s a moment I’ll cherish.’’
PORT ADELAIDE 4.4 7.6 8.9 10.12 (72)
MELBOURNE 2.3 5.5 8.7 10.9 (69)
BEST – Port: Wines, R. Gray, Ebert, Westhoff, Lobbe, K. Cornes. Melbourne: Tyson, N. Jones, Frawley, Jamar, Ball, Viney.
GOALS – Port: Westhoff, Stewart, Schulz 2, Pittard, Boak, Wingard, Young. Melbourne: Tyson 2, Tapscott, Vince, Pedersen, Frawley, Blease, Kennedy-Harris, Watts, Bail.
CROWD – 37,894 at Adelaide Oval.