Grand final 2021

A bit of reading from todays tiser

EAGLE ROCKY
Jade Sheedy’s men were up for the fight in the SANFL
grand final, writes Andrew Capel
MOST pundits gave Woodville-West Torrens only a puncher’s chance.
So coach Jade Sheedy – a self-confessed movie buff – turned to Rocky IV.
“I guess you have some themes and I thought Rocky symbolised our footy club,’’ Sheedy
said of the pregame motivational tool he used to inspire his players to a stunning upset
of warm favourite Glenelg in Sunday’s SANFL grand final.
“I love the Rocky movies, I’m a Rocky man and that was the theme going into the game.
“It was a little bit around the blue collar, hard working (ethic), what it needs to look like
to stay in the fight, to know you’re going to get knocked down throughout the game and
to be able to get back up. That’s what we tried to bring.
“In Rocky IV (actor) Dolph Lundgren (who played the part of Russian boxer Ivan
Drago) was the easy favourite and Rocky (played by Sylvester Stallone) managed to
beat him, so there was the history behind that and what it looked like for us, so that’s
what we rolled with.
“I watched the movie again, we cut up some clips from it to make our own video and
showed it in our last team meeting.’’ It had the desired effect.
After taking an early, 12-minute punch from the Tigers, who had produced, statistically,
one of the greatest SANFL home-and-away seasons of all time, winning their first 17
games and posting a 17-1 minor round record, the Eagles seized control.
They kicked the next seven goals and 14 of the final 16 to deliver the knockout punch,
winning by a whopping 67 points – the biggest winning margin in a grand final since
the Eagles thrashed Central District by 76 points in 2006.
The resounding victory secured back-to-back flags for the Eagles for the first time,
following their grand final success against North Adelaide last year, prompting Sheedy
to declare it the club’s “finest hour’’.
“It’s back-to-back premiers and that means a lot to this footy club,’’ said Sheedy, who
has taken the Eagles to the promised land in each of his first two years as coach.
“It is our finest hour because we just keep putting ourselves in this position.
We lost eight players last year, we’ve had half a team that didn’t play in last year’s
premiership come in and play (in the grand final) and our ability to keep staying in the
fight, like I’ve talked about, and to win it is just testament to absolutely everyone at our
footy club.’’ Woodville-West Torrens – formed by an amalgamation of the Woodville
and West Torrens clubs at the end of 1990 – has been through its share of finals
heartbreak.
From 2010-18 it won one premiership (2011) and lost two grand finals (2015-16) and
three preliminary finals (2010, 2017-18).
Sheedy pushes the fighting, blue collar, working class spirit at Eagleland, saying:
“Because that’s where we are as a footy club’’.
“We are deep in the western suburbs, we have some really tough footballers at our
club,’’ said Sheedy, adding the grand final statistic he was most pleased about was
restricting high-scoring Glenelg to only four goals.
“You look at Ben Jungfer, Jack Firns, Angus Poole, Jake Comitogianni, Jesse Lonergan,
we have a lot of blokes who just love a scrap and a fight.
“They are finals players and we saw that in the grand final.
“They are players who want to get their hands dirty and that’s how you need to build a
list and try to win premierships because when you come to finals it’s a different game,
big finals aren’t necessarily won on neat ball movement, it’s harder to get the ball off
the line, it’s harder to come through the corridor, you are playing great teams every
week and you need that one-versus-one contest and the ability to fight and scrap
through anything.’’ Sheedy, a Magarey Medallist and premiership player with Sturt in
2002, implored his players to take the grand final on against Glenelg, rather than play
safe.
The powerful message came from one of his mentors, former Eagles and current Crows
SANFL coach M i c h a e l Godden, who won a flag with the club in 2011 but lost grand
finals in 2015-16.
“I spoke to ‘Godsy’ during the (grand final) week, you have a lot of mentors around the
place, you ring a lot of people and you ask them what would you do differently or what
did you get wrong,’’ Sheedy said.
“I’m not silly enough to think I know everything and believe the more people you can
reach out to that you respect, the better. I think the greatest strength of a coach is to
know you don’t know everything and have to keep your ears open.
“Godsy just said he thought the will to actually want to win, rather than sometimes
feeling you just need to get there and hang on to win, was important. He gave some
great advice.’’ While Godden is a close confidante, former Sturt coach Rick Macgowan
is the man Sheedy most leans on.
“I talk to Rick every second day, I reckon,’’ Sheedy said.
“He coached me at Sturt in 2007-08 and is the best coach I’ve had. He’s a great person
to talk to about footy.’’ Sheedy’s remarkable success – he has won three consecutive
flags as coach after steering Athelstone to the Adelaide Footy League division two
premiership before joining the Eagles – has prompted some AFL “nibbles’’.
But, having last month signed a three-year contract extension with the Eagles tying him
to the club until the end of the 2025 season, he isn’t yet ready to bite.
“You never say never but it’s not something I want to do right now,’’ Sheedy said. “In
five, seven, eight years if I am still coaching, maybe, but right now I have a commitment
to the Eagles and I’ll stand by that.
“My heart is here, with the players and the footy club.’’ Sheedy is not convinced he will
ever want to jump into the AFL system.
“Because I love the SANFL, I have a lot of interests outside of footy and I am not a real
footy head,’’ he said.
“Obviously I love the game and love coaching and I love my time at the Eagles, when we
train and prepare, all of that, but I am not someone who is immersed in it 24/7.
“I think I have a really good balance with my life, I run a building company as well and
do some other things outside of footy and that’s what I want to keep doing.’’ Grand final
star Daniel Menzel, who spent a decade as a player in the AFL with Geelong and
Sydney, said he had no doubt Sheedy would make a fine AFL coach, declaring he was
the best coach he had played for.
“I’ve had a lot of different coaches and a lot are either really good tactically or really
good relationship-wise, you struggle to find someone who does both really well,’’ he
said.
“Sheeds does do both really well and it’s something the players notice.
He is able to bring out the best in the playing group and is as good a coach as I’ve seen
or played under.’