Round 21, 1986 - Subiaco FC 27.17 (179) d West Perth FC 12.9 (81), Subiaco Oval

Laurie Keene - outstanding for Subiaco Lions in the ruck this day at the tail-end of the 1986 WAFL season - he changed the way the game was played by helping to force the six-foot-one inch ruckmen out of the first rucks.

Round 21, 1986 – Subiaco v West Perth, Subiaco Oval

Peter Featherby - back at Subi in 86

Readers may be wondering why I include this game as a “classic match” here on the website when Subiaco defeated West Perth by 98 points. I define “classic” to include not only close and exciting games but also games which are somehow representative of a season or an era for one or both competing teams and/or for the league itself. This game proved how devastatingly brilliant the Subiaco team of 1986 was – the last truly great team of the WAFL’s Glory Days which ended with the formation of West Coast Eagles FC. On its home ground, Subiaco literally dismantled piece by piece a West Perth team which had final four aspirations at the start of the game. In the end, the game was little more than a training run for the home team and master-coach Haydn Bunton Junior used it to trial a new forward set-up with Todd Breman at full-forward. The late Geoff Christian wrote a long and detailed match report of this game (full-text is reproduced below) primarily because the match had vital significance for the coming final round where Subiaco was due to play its only serious challenger for the premiership Ron Alexander’s East Fremantle in the second semi-final.

Peter Featherby - brilliant till the end

Subiaco’s nominated team (see below) shows what a strong team Haydn Bunton Junior had managed to assemble since he took over the perpetual cellar-dwellers at the start of the 1984 season. It included the perfect blend of youth and experience; a first-rate ruck led by the gentle giant Laurie Keene and the reliable Phil Scott (both of whom could kick goals in the forward-line); the best forward-line seen in the WAFL since the Claremont team of the early-1980s which had featured Warren Ralph, Steve Malaxos, and Jim and Phil Krakouer; and some fast-running, aggressive, and competent defenders including Clinton Brown (a vast improver), Michael Crutchfield, Phil Lamb, and Mark Zanotti. Experience was provided by the ever loyal rover Neil Taylor (one of the few players left over from the failed years in the second-half of the 1970s and the early-1980s) and the brilliant Peter Featherby, back from his time at Footscray and Geelong but still performing at very close to his VFL/AFL standard. In this game Featherby dominated the midfield (a traditional area of strength for West Perth in the 1970s and 1980s) with 31 kicks. He was nominated as second-best Subiaco player on the ground behind Todd Breman.

Mark Zanotti - bogan till die!

The highlight of this game for the fans must have been watching the brilliance of a Subiaco team which lost the end-of-season challenge game to Hawthorn by only two points and was clearly a VFL/AFL standard team. Up forward Haydn Bunton Junior in this West Perth game experimented with Todd Breman at full-forward who kicked 10.1, the first double-figure goals tally since the days of Austin Robertson in the 1960s. Geoff Christian even claimed that Breman’s fast and efficient leading and his drop-punt accuracy reminded him of Robertson. As an indication of the new depth at Subiaco, Breman had played at full-forward in the reserves in the Round 1 game against East Fremantle. Furthermore, Laurie Keene had demonstrated his undoubted class as a full-forward with nine goals against Swan Districts in April 1985 but Bunton enjoyed the luxury this day of changing the ruckmen Keene and Scott through the back-pocket. Centre-half-forward Warren Dean (later to play with distinction for Melbourne) kicked 4.5 whilst the very handy VFA/VFL pick-up the unobtrusive Stephen Sells added 4.4 from the forward pocket. Phil Lamb and Laurie Keene were the other best players nominated from Subiaco to gain votes from this game in the WA Footballer of the Year Award. Phil Lamb was a reliable and hard-working player and loyal team-man. Like Neil Taylor, he managed to improve his skills and maintain a place in the starting 18 even in the years of Bunton’s super-team. Both players clearly enjoyed being able to play in such a great side after years of being part of a club which had become the joke of Western Australian football after years when it had found it difficult to manage as many as six wins a season. As well as his 1986 premiership medallion, Taylor deserved another medal for enduring so many lean years at Subiaco which in his case stretched back as far as 1975. It was players like these two which the inaugural West Coast Eagles FC team lacked in 1987 with the Eagles’ initial squad being heavily biased towards fashionable but somewhat green young players under the age of 24 years. Laurie Keene, simply because of his great height, revolutionized ruck play in WA football with the days of ruckmen of 183-185 cms. tall (six-foot to six-foot-one) such as South Fremantle’s Stephen Michael effectively coming to an end around this time. (Michael perhaps is not a good example to illustrate this point since during his playing years he had a huge leap which allowed him to compete at centre bounce downs against much taller players such as Ron Boucher and Graham Moss, as well as West Perth’s Ben Jager and Russell Ellen. I did not watch enough Subiaco versus South Fremantle games in the early-1980s to knowledgably comment but surely Michael must have struggled against a ruckman as tall as Keene.)

Dean Laidley - WP / NM/  PA

Only centreman Dean Laidley out of the West Perth players rated in the best five men on the ground. He performed brilliantly to achieve a second best-on-ground rating in a team which lost by 98 points. Again we can see this game as indicative of the era, with Laidley’s talent being spotted by the West Coast Eagles. He was among five West Perth players chosen in the West Coast squad, and all of these five were youth. West Perth was comprehensively outplayed and defeated, morally as much as in any other way. Ever since the premiership year of 1975, West Perth’s strength had been its running midfielders and its weaknesses had been its ruckmen and its key-position forwards and defenders. This trend continued with West Perth’s defenders being comprehensively outplayed this day by Subiaco’s potent forward-line. Christian noted that the Subiaco forwards would be put under much more pressure by East Fremantle defenders such as Shane Ellis and Michael “Monkey” Brennan in the second semi-final.

Dean Laidley - working-class man!

By 1986 (although not in 1984) the WAFL had become somewhat predictable. As a journalist of the time said, Subiaco and East Fremantle were by far the best teams in 1986 with Perth far below these two but far ahead of fourth-placed Claremont. The dominance of Subiaco and East Fremantle can be seen from their respective win-loss records of 17-4 and 16-5. Ominously, for all other clubs, both these teams won their last two home-and-away games of the 1986 season. The gap between the top two teams and fourth-placed Claremont was clearly evident from East Fremantle’s stunning Round 21 win over Claremont at Claremont Oval where the port-based team won 27.14 (176) to 13.11 (89). As Christian pointed out in a second article on the Monday following Round 21 (see quote below), Perth and Claremont lost by a combined 123 points on the Saturday. Perth lost to a fast improving East Perth 21.21 (147) to 16.15 (111) at home at Lathlain Park, a loss which must have been extremely frustrating and worrying for Perth FC fans on the eve of the finals. The only comforting fact for Perth fans of course was that their club’s first semi-final opponent Claremont was performing equally poorly. Perth in fact lost the last two games of the season but was still sitting comfortably in third place after Round 21. Only a few Perth fans dared to hope that now, under one Malcolm Gregory Brown, the club might win its first premiership since 1977.

Ross Gibbs (WP champion), 1982, Scanlens card

Returning to the West Perth team, it appears that the team was beaten in every position on the ground including the centreline and ruck-roving, the team’s strongest areas in the 1970s and 1980s. Christian wrote enthusiastically about Peter Featherby’s 31 kicks in the centre and the winning efforts of rovers Neil Taylor and Glen O’Loughlin and ruck-rover Dwayne Lamb. Laurie Keene and Phil Scott won the ruck contests against Dan Foley and Craig Nelson. Kim Rogers, the best West Perth ruckman of 1985-86, was again not playing due to injury. He was sorely missed. Games like these made one realize West Perth had depended very heavily on Phil Bradmore, Les Fong, and Peter Menaglio for success (especially in the 1985 season when the team had made the finals). With these three star players all either beaten comprehensively (Bradmore and Fong) or not playing (Peter “Saint Peter” Menaglio), West Perth was not at all competitive. Bradmore needed to dominate at centre-half-forward and kick a barrel of goals himself for West Perth to win a match against strong opposition. In this game he was well held and ended up kicking only 1.1. Running players Corry Bewick (WPFC’s star “recruit” for 1986) and Les Fong just crept into West Perth’s best players’ list at numbers five and six. The loss of Menaglio and other early-1980s star players such as David Palm and Peter Murnane were being keenly felt by West Perth in August 1986 with the tiny Les Fong even being named as ruck-rover for this game. Other strong performers in 1986 such as Brendon Bell and Darren Bewick obviously were simply swept aside in the Subiaco onslaught. As has been written elsewhere on this website, WPFC in 1986 had failed to satisfactorily plug holes in its defence caused by the exits of Graeme Comerford, John Duckworth, Geoff Hendriks, and Mick O’Brien. Noel Mugavin was now the full-back but he was simply the last one to retire of the old workhorses and at 30-years-of-age in 1986 he was not a good bet for the future. In the forward line the situation was as bad or even worse with no key-position players coming through to replace Rod Alderton and Brian Adamson (who last played in 1984) and Doug Simms (who last played in 1985). One or two new key-position forwards had been desperately needed to compliment Phil Bradmore. During 1986 the team played with no recognized full-forward and it was rare for any one player to score more than three goals per game. In this match Craig Nelson scored 3.1 (Nelson was a player certainly far below the Laurie Keene standard in front of goals despite the optimism of those at the club) and no other player scored more than two.

Ross Gibbs, Glenelg, 1985-86, badly missed by WP

The main problem at West Perth in 1986 was simply hubris and overconfidence from the administration, coach, and players. No recruits of note were added to the team from interstate or other clubs in 1986 and the juniors coming through were not of the quantity or quality to match clubs such as East Perth and South Fremantle (as can be seen from West Perth’s Round 19 loss to South Fremantle at Fremantle Oval). The dark years of 1990-92, when WPFC was last three years in a row, were coming up and I believe that 1986 marked the beginning of the downhill slide. The club was partly right to argue that its inner-city recruiting areas were drying up fast but this does not mean it should have ever left Leederville Oval. Like Subiaco has done (and Perth south of the river), it should have just claimed new recruitment areas in the far northern suburbs while keeping its traditional home ground. Supporters were extremely disappointed that the club could not improve on its fourth placing of 1985. The main reasons were injuries and a failure to recruit any name new recruits from interstate or other clubs. Meanwhile, WPFC fans had to endure the sight of Derek Kickett performing brilliantly at Claremont; David Hart succeeding as a rover at South Fremantle; and even Mick Rea against all the odds securing a second lease on life under Mal Brown at Perth and topping the season’s goal-kicking. All of these were ex-West Perth players and players who should have been retained. Further afield, Ross Gibbs achieved dual premiership medallions with Glenelg in the strong SANFL competition of 1985-86 and David Palm was exceeding all expectations in the centre position for Richmond (proving himself worthy of being included in the line of brilliant Richmond centremen from the recent past such as Geoff Raines and Maurice Rioli). [David Palm played 104 games for Richmond from 1983-88.]

Ross Gibbs marks for Glenelg v Port Adelaide

However, it may well be that West Perth simply did not put in the required effort or play with sufficient enthusiasm. This is hypothesis rather than fact. I did not attend this game. Christian made a somewhat strange comment in his match report which is difficult to interpret as follows: “But there was only enough fuel on board to maintain a luke-warm challenge after the initial burst of energy had been burnt up”. What exactly did he mean when he said West Perth did “not have enough fuel on board”? Was he politely hinting at a lack of effort and enthusiasm or did he mean lack of fitness and/or lack of ability? West Perth lost every quarter and nearly every position on the field. West Perth was given a final chance to make the final four in this game. Christian correctly wrote that the team gave the supporters not one glimmer of hope. David Marsh had previously claimed in The West Australian that the Round 19 loss to South Fremantle was the make-or-break game and yet West Perth’s Round 20 win over Claremont gave them yet another chance to make the final four. With an East Fremantle victory over Claremont fairly likely in Round 21, even at Claremont Oval, West Perth only had to beat Subiaco (and Claremont lose) for West Perth to scrape into the final four by two premiership points. The fact that a place in the final four was still up for grabs should have meant West Perth had sufficient motivation in this Round 21 match. Why did WPFC capitulate so badly in this game and at the tail end of the 1986 season? This is one of the key questions posed by the events of the dying days of the last WAFL season prior to the West Coast Eagles’ era (during which 90% of Western Australian football fans would no longer find such questions remotely interesting any longer). What was John Wynne’s relationship with the players like this late in the 1986 season? Wynne did not continue on in 1987. Overall, West Perth’s disappointing end to the 1986 season was a huge blow to the fans because the signing of John Wynne as coach before the 1985 season had raised expectations to a new higher level.

Haydn Bunton Junior - master-coach, respect!

Subiaco’s 1985-86 team proved itself to be one of the greatest WAFL teams produced in any era and the club could have won three premierships in a row to equal the achievement of Swan Distracts in 1982-84 had the advent of the VFL/AFL not ripped the heart out of the team. As has been written elsewhere on this website, Bunton and the club produced an amazing feat to win the 1988 premiership after so many devastating player losses had been sustained, and Todd Breman was a key element in that second premiership win. Sadly, the Bunton era fizzled out rather than ended with a bang as most Western Australian football fans devoted their attention primarily to the VFL/AFL competition after the formation of West Coast Eagles. Bunton’s achievement at Subiaco was every bit as great as the achievement of John Todd at Swan Districts. It was not Bunton’s fault that he lost over half of his starting 20 at the end of the 1986 season. The fact that after such enormous player losses the team could bounce to back to win the 1988 premiership says all that needs to be said about Bunton's excellence as a coach [by Kieran James, this version dated 27 January 2013].

Likely line-ups:

(Source: The West Australian, Saturday, 23 August 1986, p. 203)

Subiaco FC

Backs: Dawson, Brown, Crutchfield

Half-backs: P Lamb, Wilkinson, Sparks

Centres: Carpenter, Featherby, Dargie

Half-forwards: MacNish, Dean, Langdon

Forwards: O’Loughlin, Breman, Sells

Ruck: Keene, D Lamb, N Taylor

Interchange: Scott, Georgiades

In: Featherby, Crutchfield

Out: Willet, Zanotti

West Perth FC

Backs: Martin, Mugavin, Munns

Half-backs: Binder, Barns, Bell

Centres: D Bewick, Laidley, King

Half-forwards: Gastev, Bradmore, Warwick

Forwards: Nelson, Sadowski, Chaplin

Ruck: Foley, L Fong, C Bewick

Interchange: Collinge, Lill

In: Barns

Out: Mifka (jaw)

Match results - Saturday, 23 August, 1986, Subiaco Oval

Subiaco FC 4.5 13.9 22.14 27.17 (179) d West Perth FC 2.2 6.7 9.7 12.9 (81)

Scorers: S: Breman 10.1, Sells 4.5, Dean 4.4, Georgiades, MacNish 2.1, Langdon 1.2, P Lamb, Featherby 1.1, Scott, N Taylor 1.0, Keene 0.1.

WP: Nelson 3.1, Foley 2.1, Fong 2.0, Chaplin 1.2, Bradmore, Gastev, C Bewick 1.1, King 1.0, Lill 0.1, Forced 0.1.

Weather: Fine, light south-westerly breeze.

(Source: The West Australian, Monday, 25 August 1986, p. 96)

Attendance: 9,916 (from WAFL Online).

Free kicks: S: 9, 5, 6, 4 – 24.

WP: 5, 8, 6, 6 – 25.

Best players:

WA Footballer of the Year Award:

5 votes Todd Breman (Subiaco) – An immaculate 10-goal performance at full-forward where he gave an outstanding exhibition of straight and long kicking.

4 votes Dean Laidley (West Perth) – Battled hard, long and spiritedly in his team’s losing cause. Was continually under notice in the midfield.

3 votes Peter Featherby (Subiaco) – Another [conspicuous] performance in the middle. Had 31 kicks in a composed display of skill and stamina.

2 votes Phil Lamb (Subiaco) – Was prominent early on a half-back flank and then went to a wing where he continued in strong, hard-working form.

1 vote Laurie Keene (Subiaco) – Was the dominant ruckman. Wound up his best season in league football with another excellent all-round performance.

(Source: The West Australian, Monday, 25 August 1986, p. 96)

Team rankings: S: T Breman 1, P Featherby 2, P Lamb 3, L Keene 4, D Lamb 5, M Crutchfield 6.

WP: D Laidley 1, D Foley 2, C Barns 3, R Munns 4, C Bewick 5, L Fong 6.

(Source: The West Australian, Monday, 25 August 1986, p. 96)

Other Round 21 results:

South Fremantle 21.16 (142) d Swan Districts 12.12 (84), Fremantle Oval

East Perth 21.21 (147) d Perth 16.15 (111), Lathlain Park

East Fremantle 27.14 (176) d Claremont 13.11 (89), Claremont Oval

	Round 21	WAFL	Table	1986
	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	%	Points
SUBIACO*	21	17	4	-	140.26	68
EAST FREM**	21	16	5	-	139.43	64
PERTH	21	12	8	1	98.77	50
CLAREMONT	21	10	11	-	110.44	40
West Perth	21	9	11	1	88.69	38
East Perth	21	7	14	-	87.10	28
South Frem	21	7	14	-	74.93	28
Swan Dist	19	5	16	-	82.87	20

(Source: The West Australian, Monday, 25 August 1986, p. 96)

*eventual 1986 WAFL premiers

**eventual 1986 WAFL runners-up

Leading goal-kickers after Round 21 (Top 9 players):

80 – Mick Rea (P)

72 – John Scott (C)

66 – Stephen Sells (S)

63 – Colin Waterson (EF)

57 – Brian Peake (EF)

52 – Warren Dean (S), Craig Edwards (SF)

50 – Wayne Ryder (P)

46 – Tony Buhagiar (EF)

Complete match report (full text):

By the late GEOFF CHRISTIAN:

“Subiaco coach Haydn Bunton’s continuing and imaginative search for the perfect goalkicking formula broke new ground on Saturday when he used Warren Dean, Todd Breman and Stephen Sells in close order across the full-forward line against West Perth at Subiaco Oval.

“This variation on the theme produced a formidable tally of 18.10, a major contribution to the 98-point victory on a day when Subiaco completed their preparation for the second semi-final by kicking 27.17 – their third-highest score of the season.

“To use Breman, Dean and Sells in concert as an attacking unit, Bunton deployed first-year players John Georgiades and Karl Langdon as half-forwards and made no use whatsoever of the considerable goal-kicking skills of ruckman Laurie Keene who was rested in defence.

“A year ago, Keene was Subiaco’s No. 1 goalkicker but he was not missed in attack on Saturday as Breman (10.1), Sells (4.5) and Dean (4.4) went on a goalscoring spree for which West Perth had neither the required individual ability nor the overall defensive technique to counter.

“It was 21 weeks ago that Breman was the full-forward in the reserves against East Fremantle on the opening day of the season when he scored six goals and first drew attention to his potential as a goal scorer.

“That potential now has been confirmed after Breman gave the best goalkicking performance for Subiaco since Keene kicked 9.0 against Swan Districts on April 27 last year. It was the first double-figure tally for the Lions since the days of Austin Robertson.

“Robertson had no greater admirer as a full-forward than Bunton. And there were features of Breman’s display on Saturday that were strongly reminiscent of Subiaco’s former master of the goalkicking art.

“Breman’s ultra-fast and well-timed leads were pure Robertson and so was his accuracy with the drop punt, though he has the capacity to kick longer (and sometimes longer than required) – but with less concentration.

“And Subiaco showed a willingness and impressive ability to get the ball to a man who has arrived at full-forward this year via the half-back flank and the wing – an unusual and circuitous route.

“This was an impeccable display from Breman, though he can expect far closer and tougher attention in the second semi-final than he received on Saturday.

“[Warren] Dean, Subiaco’s irregular centre-half-forward, played like a man coming back to form and maybe to centre-half-forward, though his kicking lacked the precision he achieved mid-season.

“[Stephen] Sells, unorthodox, unpredictable and unreliable on Saturday when kicking for goal inside the square, again revealed his uncanny and refreshing knack of ending up with the difficult ball.

“When Keene dominates the ruck, centreman Peter Featherby has 31 kicks, rovers Neil Taylor and Glen O’Loughlin come back to form and ruck-rover Dwayne Lamb is a winner, Subiaco’s forward[s] are apt not to lack opportunity.

“And when the defence, led by full-back Clinton Brown and the dashing half-backs Michael Crutchfield and Mark Zanotti, plays with authority the opposition finds it hard to score.

“That is how it worked out for West Perth, who failed to come to grips with the competitive challenge on Saturday and did not give their fans a hope of victory and the opportunity of qualifying for the first semi-final.

“Centreman Dean Laidley set the standard for spirit, perseverance and performance in this West Perth team that started full of spirit in the first 20min. But there was only enough fuel on board to maintain a luke-warm challenge after the initial burst of energy had been burnt up.

“West Perth were too spasmodic on the ball and their team play suffered badly in the face of fast, effective and frequent Subiaco tackling”.

(Source: Geoff Christian (1986), “Lions thrive on new tactic in attack”, The West Australian, Monday, 25 August 1986, p. 96)

Second article by GEOFF CHRISTIAN (selected quote):

“Claremont and Perth lost by a combined margin of 123 points on Saturday, hardly the type of form required to produce an inspiring [first] semi-final clash” (page 96).

(Source: Geoff Christian (1986), “Perth likely to recall Stasinowsky”, The West Australian, Monday, 25 August 1986, pp. 96, 100)

[archival research by Kieran James].