Grinding to 200 with Shane Parker

by LES EVERETT

THE Derby room at the Fremantle Football Club was packed on Tuesday for Shane Parker's 200 game press conference.

shane parker pressa

Part of the team. Shane Parker faces the media surrounded by his team mates - just as he wanted it. Photo by Les Everett.

All the players filed in. All the coaches were there. Parker's wife Paula was there and any staff member who could escape from a desk or a phone was there.

As a piece of footy symbolism it couldn't have been more appropriate. Rarely has a player reached 200 games at the highest level in such a team-filled way.

In an ideal football world Parker would have been a small defender. His task would have been to look after the annoying little forwards or mid-sized attackers in the opposition; to run the ball out of defence and even to pot a goal from time to time.

But life as a foundation player in a fledgling AFL team was never going to be ideal and so over the years Parker has often found himself as his team's main key defender. That has meant lining up on people like Matthew Lloyd, Matthew Richardson and Fraser Gehrig conceding height and weight and knowing the the probable result of every lost contest was a goal.

This year things were going to be different. Luke McPharlin was a centre half back of All-Australian dimensions; Robert Haddrill was the kind of full back who gives the impression he wouldn't want to set foot in a forward line; and Graham Polak was a young defender ideally suited to any excess tall forward.

Of course injuries hit, McPharlin became a forward and Parker was back picking up players like Lloyd and Richardson.

Parker entered the room for the conference, hunched over the microphone in familiar style, waved off the first reporter's question and announced that the purpose of the gathering was to announce his retirement ... from kicking-in.

Shane Parker. Comedian.

The defender has made some kick-in errors this year and to highlight a shortcoming on such an occasion was pure Parker. There had, he said, been more downs than ups during his decade at Fremantle. And while admitting to not fully comprehending his pending milestone he did understand how hard it was to play 200 AFL games and how fortunate he was to be the first to do it for the Dockers.

Parker said it was his preference to be surrounded by the rest of the players for the press conference because you don't get anywhere in football without your team mates. Asked about his future Parker said he was feeling all right and would gain inspiration from the blokes around him including Shaun McManus, the only other player to have gone the whole Fremantle journey. "You don't forget people like that," Parker said.

More than once during the conference Parker used a term that summed up the kind of approach he feels will eventually lead Fremantle to success.

The players, he said, had to keep grinding away.

Fittingly, having ground his way through almost 11 AFL seasons, Shane Parker will run onto the home of football - the MCG - on Sunday to play his 200th game.

From the Fremantle Rooster.

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