A winning culture

by LES EVERETT

WHILE Fremantle's finals record is well documented there's no shortage of recent experience among the players and coaches.

Peter Bell (North Melbourne 1996 and 1997), Des Headland (Brisbane 2002), Josh Carr (Port Adelaide 2004) and Jarrad Schofield (Port 2004) are the premiership players on the list. Jeff Farmer played in a grand final with Melbourne in 2000.

Assistant coach Mark Harvey was a triple premiership player for Essendon and an assistant coach along with Robert Shaw, now Fremantle's football operations manager, when the Bombers won the flag in 2000. Another of the coaching assistants, Michael Broadbridge, was with Collingwood in the grand final years of 2002 and 2003.

Development coach Steve Malaxos played in WAFL premiership teams at Claremont and East Fremantle and experienced finals action as a player with West Coast and a coach at Sydney.

Another member of the football department, Steven Icke, was a premiership player with North Melbourne in the Barassi years.

The experience even extends to the board with Tony Buhagiar playing in the losing grand final for Essendon and two premierships with East Fremantle and Ben Allan a premiership with Hawthorn in 1991 and two for Claremont.

Even some of the young players know what it's like to be part of a successful finals campaign. Last year Roger Hayden, Ryan Murphy, Daniel Gilmore and Paul Duffield were in South Fremantle's grand final winning team while David Mundy and Ryan Crowley (Subiaco), Luke Webster (East Perth) and Heath Black (South Fremantle) also have WAFL premierships on their CVs.

8 September 2006

australianrules.com.au

Disclaimer