Round 4 – Collingwood v West Coast: ‘It’d be a good one to win’
By early 1973 Ian Chappell had been captain of the national cricket team for two years. The team had squared the Ashes contest in England the previous winter by winning an epic Test match at The Oval. The late Rod Marsh hit the winning runs and came off swinging his bat like a crazy person. Australia had found two great fast bowlers in Lillee and Massie and the spirit in the side was said to be growing with each contest. Chappell’s philosophy, Ian Brayshaw described in Warriors in Baggy Green Caps, was simple; to win the respect of his players and to respond in kind with support and trust.
But it was now March ’73 and the team was a long way from home at Port of Spain, Trinidad in the West indies. The series had entered the third of five Tests and neither side had won a Test. The pitch was dry, dusty and the weather was ennervatingly hot and humid. By lunch on the last day the West Indies needed just 66 more runs to win and had six wickets in hand. The Australian change room was silent and still with most players stretched out near-exhausted on the benches. Lillee had played one Test and sustained severe stress fractures in his back. Massie was ill and also not playing. On the spinning wicket Chappell could not call on Australia’s best spinner Ashley Mallett who had opted not to tour. The Umpires knocked on the door to signal they were on their way out. Ian Chappell stood up, tugged on his baggy green cap and said to no-one in particular “It’d be a good one to win” and led the way out into the cauldron. Australia won the Test match by 44 runs and went on to win the series 2-0.
As a win against the odds went, it was one of the great ones. It presaged a great era for Australian cricket until the retirement of Lillee, Marsh and the Chappells some 10 years later.
Adam Simpson probably didn’t have the dressing room at Port of Spain in mind when he left the three quarter time huddle at Marvel stadium on Saturday but his team was in a similar position to the Aussies fifty years earlier.
The West Coast Eagles had been decimated by injury and Covid protocols over the first four weeks of the 2022 season. They had already used 39 players and had just four who had played every game. Two of them – Luke Foley and Patrick Naish – had not played ten career games in total. They had played top up players drawn from the WAFL who had won respect for their whole-hearted commitment to the contest in the game against North Melbourne. But the team travelled to Melbourne to meet Collingwood who were up and about after good wins against the Saints and Adelaide and a good effort for three quarters against Geelong. Collingwood were missing de Goey and Adams but the Eagles were still playing the kids.
Out of the Eagles first choice team were Shuey, Kelly, Yeo, Sheed, Gaff, Cripps, Allen and Cole. Others were playing on limited preparation and Covid recoveries. A brief check of the tipsters in the papers showed not a one who thought the Eagles could win.
On this page after the North-Eagles game, that wise footy observer Peter B said he had enjoyed watching the Eagles that day more than at any time in four years. Most of the players, he reckoned, had been hard at it and, in his view, the Eagles players showed more desire to play for each other than they had in two seasons. I had seen only the injustice in throwing this team of WAFL players on the road into a hopeless contest in which only one outcome was ever likely. But I pondered Peter’s view , and considered the lessons that might come from extreme adversity. I can remember playing in amateur sporting teams that traced back joyous premierships to humiliating losses and seemingly hopeless prospects. The thing that they had in common was the spirit in the group; that indefinable willingness to play for each other that often extracts a performance much greater than the apparent sum of the parts. And an innate desire to confront the odds and face them down.
Word reached across the country that the players at West Coast, old and new, unlike their predecessors in Covid hubs two years before, were enjoying themselves immensely. No one expected anything from these teams thrown together on Thursday nights with a “who’s available?” like a coach in the country writing the names on a bit of paper to go up in the butcher’s window Friday morning. They would wait and see who arrived for the bus to the game, only this was an Airbus and the game was 3400 kilometres away. But, somewhere along the way they hadn’t got the message that they were supposed to lose.
So when Simpson left the huddle at three quarter time with the Eagles trailing by seven points and the odds piling up, his last words were ; “just get the first goal”. He might as well have said “It’d be a good one to win” because the respect and trust contract between Simpson and this group, like that in 2018, seems redolent of the Chappell-led Australians of a generation ago. They did get the first goal. And then they won.
McGovern was impassable and Duggan, Hurn, Barrass and Witherden followed him time and again into the fire. The Magpies entered their forward 50 on 61 occasions for only 24 scores, only 10 of them goals. Willie Rioli again showed courage and class up forward as did Liam Ryan. Josh Kennedy who had talked the coach into playing him, had five kicks for three cracking goals. The Eagles went in only 42 times for 17 scores of which 14 were worth 6 points. But it was a bunch of “unknowns” who really stood up; Naish, West, O’Neill, Foley, Edwards, Langdon, Waterman. Even Jack Darling who for three weeks looked lost in a vaccinated world which he didn’t understand seemed to rediscover his passion for the game. Naitanui and Brodie Grundy had another enthralling contest which broke even, but Hugh Dixon stepped up as a second string. He will need to again; Nic did his medial ligament in the last ruck contest and limped off to add to the pile of detriment which at least now no longer resembled a pile of something else.
Simpson reflected after the game on the indefinable:
“The whole club in general has tried to embrace the situation as best we could. It’s really hard to bottle, spirit. What is it? How do you cultivate it? How do you keep it alive? I’ve seen it at its all-time best at clubs, and at West Coast, and I’ve seen it when it’s fractured a little bit – and it’s as strong as ever. That’s important. I wish I could keep it forever, but sometimes it does wane a little bit when you don’t win….The intangibles in the game. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing local footy or playing in the Grand Final. Probably 85 per cent of what we do is the same as every other club. Then that last 10-15 per cent that’s the special stuff. You see Melbourne have got it; Brisbane have got it. Teams around the top of the ladder you can see what they do and how they play for each other. It’s just a challenge when you’re not winning to maintain that. It sounds a bit fluffy but it’s really important if you can get that above your strategy and gameplan.”
I’m pretty sure The West Coast Eagles aren’t going to be playing off for the title this year. I don’t think anyone ever has from 1-3. And the injury/covid list is still long and Nic Nat’s a huge loss. But make no mistake, in its context, Collingwood v West Coast, 9th April 2022, was undoubtedly one of the best, bravest and proudest wins in this club’s history.
It had been a good one to win.
Read more from John Gordon HERE.
COLLINGWOOD 1.2 6.6 9.10 10.14 (74)
WEST COAST 2.2 7.2 9.3 14.3 (87)
GOALS
Collingwood: Ginnivan 2, Mihocek 2, Cameron, J.Daicos, Henry, Hoskin-Elliott, Maynard, Wilson
West Coast: Kennedy 3, Rioli 3, Ryan 2, Darling 2, Edwards, Langdon, Naish, Waterman
BEST
Collingwood: J.Daicos, N.Daicos, Grundy, Pendlebury, Maynard
West Coast: McGovern, O’Neill, Duggan, West, Naish, Rioli
INJURIES
Collingwood: Elliott (AC joint)
West Coast: L.- Edwards (TBC)
Medical subs
Collingwood: Trent Bianco, replaced Jamie Elliott in the fourth quarter
West Coast: Josh Rotham, replaced Luke Edwards in the fourth quarter
Crowd: 25,897 at Marvel Stadium
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Terrific read JG. Nearly as good as the game. I was full of optimism after the North game. Full of pessimism after the Dockers derby.
I played golf Saturday morning and then headed off to watch Swan Districts last practice match at Claremont. My reasoning was “at least I won’t have to watch that Eagles rubbish again”. Driving to Claremont the radio told me the Pies had Adams and De Goey out and I reduced my estimated loss from 10 goals to 5 – with the midfields evened up a little. Shows how little attention I have paid to AFL this season other than watching games. Have divorced myself from all the hoopla – not seen an AFL 360 or On The Couch all year.
With the first proper WAFL game on Good Friday the coaches had left out most of their best players – including our nephew. We decided to head home and watch the second half of the Eagles. Result – unexpected bliss.
Pondering why? We always match up well on them. We’ve always been able to break even with Grundy at worst. They have no decent tall forwards and so McGovern and Barrass always have.a picnic against them. Our frenetic pressure (kudos to the kids) meant there was no clean ball in their many forward entries.
Kennedy, Rioli and Ryan were class at the other end guaranteeing full value for our limited attacks. Jack Darling reprised his role as a Cigar Store Indian until the last 10 minutes (I nearly got kicked out of the Derby for abusing him) but at least acts as a useful decoy to draw defenders away from our real footballers.
My retrospective assessment of the reason for our dramatic performance improvement was that we brought a lot of players back for their first games in the Derby. Connor West is an example who fumbled all game but just needed the run to find touch and was terrific against the Pies.
Hope we heed the lesson and make players earn their spots with a run in the WAFL before dropping the kids.
Really enjoyed this. The analogy with I.M. Chappell’s Test team resonates with me. Are you taking it a step further to suggest the following season will be as successful as the great Ashes series of 74-75?
I haven’t seen the game but saw the highlights and I thought if Huddo, one of the more measured and nuanced commentators, is making the claim he did, it must have been a tremendous win.