West Coast’s rise to 2018 premiership confirms status as greatest non-Victorian club in AFL era
AFTER conceding the first five goals of the 2018 grand final, the West Coast Eagles, led by South Australian warrior Shannon Hurn, showed their fight to down Collingwood and claim a fourth AFL flag.
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WEST COAST is great again — and the greatest of the non-Victorian clubs in the AFL. The Eagles have their fourth AFL premiership in 31 years after leaving Collingwood with the torment the Magpies know too well from the old VFL.
From its seventh grand final, West Coast won the flag by five points off the extraordinary work of Norm Smith Medallist Luke Shuey in the midfield — and a boundary line goal from cool midfielder Dom Sheed in the last 105 seconds of a match that reaffirms, as every Port Adelaide fan knows too well, the Eagles just never stop coming.
West Coast adds to its triumphs in 1992, 1994 and 2006 to surpass Brisbane (three flags), Adelaide and Sydney (two) and Port Adelaide (one) in the national era that began with the Eagles in 1987.
The grind of this grand final was reflected perfectly on the scoreboard at three quarter-time with both teams at 8.7 (55). And then the last term opened with a shoot-out theme with three goals in three minutes and six overall in a hot finish to Season 2018.
West Coast had control — and possession in its half — for most of the last term but butchered four consecutive shots on goal while working against a five-point deficit. And then from the toughest option came Sheed’s match-winning goal from the boundary with 1:45 to play to give the Eagles a four-point lead.
In near-perfect conditions, scoring was made difficult by intense defending, particularly with Collingwood’s hard-sticking tackles. West Coast’s key forwards duo of Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling did not threaten as a tandem until the third term in which Darling took six marks. They finished with four goals, three from Kennedy.
Collingwood’s big American import Mason Cox shone very late in his duel with the very clever Tom Barrass. He scored two goals.
Collingwood was faultless with its start that delivered a 29-point lead in time-on from an unanswered five-goal scoring rush started by Travis Varcoe with a run inside-50 — and an emotional scream of delight while paying tribute to his late sister Margie who died in a football accident last month.
West Coast’s ability to stop the Magpies scoring in the second term — Collingwood had to wait 30 minutes for its sixth goal — was not met with any Eagles success at the goalfront. Collingwood’s defence had two clear winners in the first half — Jeremy Howe, who rekindled all Darling’s worst nightmares of the 2015 grand final; and Tom Langdon, who was finding the ball as if it was his own to keep. And if he did not have it, Langdon was making it hard for any Eagle to work it as highlighted by his desperate rush at Kennedy to spoil his kick late in the second term.
West Coast gained the lead by two points at the time-on mark of the third term (54-52) on a set-shot goal from midfielder Elliott Yeo who was gifted the ball on a turnover by Taylor Adams on the top of the 50-metre arc.
The Collingwood run-through banner that no Magpie player saw — it broke from one pole as the team filed out of the changerooms — read: “Warning: Magpies swooping.” The surged, stopped, stumbled and ultimately surrendered as the Eagles soared to the top of the AFL pole again.
SCOREBOARD
WEST COAST 2.2 4.3 8.7 11.13 (79)
COLLINGWOOD 5.1 6.3 8.7 11.8 (74)
BEST — West Coast: Shuey, Sheed, Kennedy, Hurn, Redden, Barrass.
Collingwood: Adams, Treloar, Langdon, Grundy, Sier, de Goey.
GOALS — West Coast: Kennedy 3, Cripps, Darling, Hutchings, Rioli, Sheed, Shuey, Vardy, Yeo. Collingwood: De Goey 3, Cox, Stephenson 2, Adams, Hoskin-Elliott, Mihocek, Varcoe.
NORM SMITH MEDAL: L. Shuey (West Coast).
Umpires: B. Rosebury, S. Ryan, M. Stevic.
Crowd: 100,022 at the MCG.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au