Sydney premiership coach Paul Roos relives Leo Barry’s matchwinning 2005 grand final mark
Seconds before he became a premiership coach, Paul Roos missed Leo Barry’s matchwinning mark. But he has seen it enough times since to be convinced it is the greatest mark in AFL history.
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Paul Roos admits he missed the moment Swans fans had been waiting 72 interminable years to witness.
Biased he might be, but Roos has come to believe Leo Barry’s match-saving mark in the 2005 Grand Final is the finest mark in 150 years of football.
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As Roos says, who else has been able to win a Grand Final with a mark in the final seconds of such audacious aspiration and stunning execution?
But as Dean Cox marked Barry’s own clearing kick with the clock ticking past 32 minutes and Sydney only four point to the good?
Well Roosy couldn’t even dare to watch what might happen next.
Barry would famously hurtle across a pack of ten Eagles and Swans to drag in the mark, appearing from nowhere as those players attempted to change the course of history.
“I actually didn’t see it. I turned around,” Roos told the Herald Sun.
“Someone said, “Cox has marked it, he has kicked it in”, and I have gone, “Oh no,” and looked down the other end of the ground and someone yelled out, “Leo Barry has marked it”, and then someone has yelled out, “The siren has gone,” so it was one of those coaching moments that is completely out of your hands.
“When I looked at it later on, he almost went backwards and across. It was an amazing way he took the mark, the way he got into that position and came from that side and ran across the pack leaning backwards.
When you looked at the crumbers and who was there, it was such an incredible decision to mark it rather than punching it, which would have been picked up by the West Coast boys who would have kicked a goal. The whole concept of what he was able to do was amazing.”
Roos’ top 10 marks for the Herald Sun and Fox Footy’s 50 best marks in 50 seasons are mostly ones that wowed him on the day, like Michael Mitchell’s one-handed mark and Simon Madden’s epic fly.
But as the Swans premiership coach says, what grander stage is there to execute a mark with such a high degree of difficulty?
“It’s always hard if you are not a Swans supporter and you weren’t there and saw it in isolation, it becomes a really, really good mark,” he says.
“But in the context of the game if you are talking about the greatest marks ever taken you have to take it into consideration
“It is a great stand-alone mark but for me clearly it elevates to another level when you look at when it was.”
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Rival coach John Worsfold has admitted he can’t watch the moment: ““If I know there’s something on a footy show that’s going to show Leo Barry taking a mark, I’d subconsciously walk off or turn away,’’ he has said.
He says in principle Tadgh Kennelly is clearly holding Ash Sampi with two hands as Barry marks but doesn’t believe the umpires would ever have plucked it out in such a huge pack.
Roos agrees that on the day no one saw that non-decision as any kind of notable controversy.
“It is one of those moments, until you actually dissect it, you don’t see the free kick in real time,” he says.
“There was controversy around it at the time but when it’s a still photo and you see it there, you look at it and say maybe it should be a free kick. In real time it might only be a split second of a grab. It is the more controversial moments where people talk about it after the fact.”
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He saw 184cm full back Barry keep a white-hot Fraser Gehrig kickless and routinely play on the greats of the game for little recognition.
He has never been lauded for those deeds, but Roos believes the adulation for this mark is something of a football square-up.
“He was unbelievable. I am glad he took the mark because at least we remember him for that but I remember him as seriously one of the best players I have ever coached.
He played on some of the best full forwards of the era and he was just unbelievable. That just stamps his standing in my mind.
“It didn’t need to be stamped for me but for a lot of other people it did. I am just rapt he took it and forever is remembered as that guy who did it because he is one of the most underrated Swans players of all time.”
The 12-person judging panel will announce their No. 1 mark on Wednesday.
Originally published as Sydney premiership coach Paul Roos relives Leo Barry’s matchwinning 2005 grand final mark
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