Strange Days

Is 'whoosh' the name of a new designer drug?

Was the recent heritage round a nostalgic trip down memory lane or some acid laced flashback conjured from the outtakes of Zabriskie Point? For those without Foxtel, the news, which travelled like wildfire last Saturday night, heralding that 20-1 outsiders the Brisbane Lions had defeated premiers West Coast Eagles, what’s more, at the latter’s Subiaco fortress, was a tonic filled with something akin to peyote. Such a result didn’t seem possible, let alone real. Then the footage came through.

Of all the retro-fashion statements made in commemoration of the 1970s such as the red shorts worn by the likes of the Western Bulldogs and Essendon and the rather apt yellow variety for Richmond, nothing over the weekend came close to challenging the double take inducing absurdity of observing Fitzroy, according to the available highlights footage, run rings around the Western Australian State Team.

An evening sure to have swelled the heart of the most melancholy of former Roy boys, the Brisbane upset victory seemed to surprise even coach Leigh Matthews who didn’t give his players much of a chance before the game. By Matthews' own admission when his side took to the field embossed with the FFC logo, it only just occured to him that they had been decimated by recent and not so recent retirements.

Having made the trip to Perth without Mick Conlan, Garry Wilson, John Ironmonger or even Darren “Doc” Wheildon, Matthews was understandably playing down his team’s chances in the Courier Mail, a paper no one outside of Queensland reads (and even there they don’t care much for it). Lucky for him too.

“We can’t tag ‘em all” Matthews was heard to say. “The hope is that they kick inaccurately at goal in the first half and that we capitalise on all the soft square-ups they’ll owe us later in the match after the umpires try and ensure the Eagles get off to their usual AFL assisted flying start.”

The tactic, an unusual one even by the four-time premiership coach’s standards, proved invaluable. West Coast coach John Worsfield admitted to the media after the game that he had no way of combating Matthews’ strategy – a strategy he credited assistant coach Craig Lambert with formulating.

"Lambert was always a left of field kind of guy" Worsfold said. "When he played in long sleeves all the time we thought it was because he was a burns victim. Turned out he just had bad acne. Covered it up well all the same" he added.

Asked of why the Eagles failed to pose for more soft frees inside the 50 metre arc, Worsfold lamented the lack of mental application shown by his forwards. "When you've recruited guys like Lynch, Hunter and Chick, you wake up in the middle of the night and think, shit, we fucked up there, what a group of meatheads. Hey, what the hell, we won the granny last year."

West Coast failed to capitalise on an opening preorchestrated to please the home crowd of 38, 321 people; most of whom would have been disappointed by the ineffective kicking and acting on display. Officially there was 210 Brisbane supporters among them. Not one Fitzroy supporter could be accounted for, however, an obese Peanut vendor claimed to have lived off Brunswick Street for a while in 1991.

“It was just chaos out there” Worsfold said of the opening quarter where the Eagles were awarded 12 free kicks to the Lions’ three. “None of their players complained about the lopsided count much less bothered to question their legitimacy, or, as the case may be, lack of” Worsfold added.

According to Matthews this allowed his team to save enough energy to overrun the Eagles, most of whose young players had never played against Fitzroy, nor for that matter, knew of the club’s mediocre traditions and nomadic past struggles for both a home base and identity.

Eagles winger Michael Braun, one of four Victorian recruits at West Coast sat beside Worsfold at the press conference. When asked about Fitzroy he recalled an inspirational story his father had told him the night before the game.

"My Old Man was at the Lakeside Oval one day. Fitzroy played there right?" Braun asked the assembled media throng. Urged to continue, Braun added, "Leon Harris kicked a goal from an impossible angle in the pocket this day but my Dad missed it because a seagull shat on him."

For the record the Lions were awarded seven free kicks to the Eagles four in the final quarter. Having conserved their energy, the Lions kicked an accurate 5.1 to the Eagles 2.6 to eventually record an historic victory.

Worsfold who had played against Fitzroy but who also could not remember ever doing so, did manage to recall an incident with former Fitzroy forward Richard Osbourne.

“I think I shattered his cheek bone once” Osborne said at the press conference. “But that may have been in a state game and I don’t remember getting rubbed out for it when the punch probably deserved five or six.”

Like his coach before him, Daniel Kerr, having accepted a one match suspension for elbowing Brisbane's Will Hamill to the face, can now be said to have had the misunderstood Western Australia versus Fitzroy rivalry torch passed down to him.