By RUSSELL BENNETT
ELLINBANK AND DISTRICT FOOTBALL LEAGUE
PRELIMINARY FINAL REVIEW WEST DIVISION
IT’S hard to picture three blokes more frustrated than Matt Grant, Ben and Tim Miller were at around 1.45 at Spencer Street on Saturday afternoon.
They were helpless. Each one crucial to Kooweerup’s chances of victory throughout the season, the injured trio was forced to watch on as the likes of the McGrath twins, inspirational skipper Luke Walker, fearless young gun Andrew Proctor and defensive stalwart Craig Dyker prepared for their club’s first grand final in decades.
The nerves were there for all to see. Any assistant coach, any trainer, any runner, any fan could have seen it etched on the Demons’ players’ faces in the rooms. But Grant and the Miller boys refused to just stand back and watch. They were in the thick of it – volunteering for the pre-game bump drills. They were a part of it and their brothers in arms felt it.
Now, thanks to the brilliance on Saturday of Proctor, Dyker and Walker, the missing trio have the chance to return for the biggest game of their careers.
Honestly – few people, if any, gave the Demons any real chance on the wide expanses of a dry Spencer Street deck against the rampaging Stars on Saturday.
Garfield was firing on all cylinders having annihilated the Goon the week before, while the Demons crumbled in the fourth quarter against the Cobras.
But Kooweerup showed an almost unbelievable steely resolve – led from defence by the under-sized Proctor and Dyker. Proctor, still a teenager, constantly found himself matched up against the likes of Brett Reid and Tom Marsh but he refused to lower his colours. Dyker, on the other hand, had his own Leo Barry moment late in the fourth quarter. He’d just been crunched in a marking dual – the wind completely taken out of him – yet he found it within himself to go for the next contest just seconds later. His reward? A grand final berth.
Walker hardly had his best individual game but he had some match-winning plays of his own in the final term amidst a five-goal Garfield onslaught. The Demons took a four-goal lead into three-quarter time but the Marsh boys, John Atwell, Dylan Collis and a rampaging Rory Hower seemed to win every centre clearance in the last 25 minutes of the contest. All the Demons could do was hold on for dear life – and that’s exactly what they did. Aside from Dyker’s mark, the two lasting images from Saturday’s game were Walker’s reaction in front of the Demons’ faithful after slotting a crucial set-shot goal from 45 metres out just inside the boundary as the minutes ticked away, and Matt Shorey – who could barely move – jumping into the arms of his side’s adoring faithful. He started with a bang, marking cleanly on the lead and impacting countless forward 50 contests, and his energy seemed fully restored once that final siren went. It’s amazing what a two-point win can do – 11.9 (75) to 10.13 (73).
