How many finals has fremantle won

In any event, the tangible upshot of both years was identical - no additions to the honour board at East Fremantle Oval. Although East Fremantle gained a small measure of revenge against the Demons the following year by winning comfortably in the first semi final en route to an eventual third place finish it was not to be until that the memory was more irrevocably consigned to oblivion.

Old East were captain-coached in by ex-South Fremantle star Steve Marsh who thereby became arguably the most popular Bulldog ever to don the blue and white of their arch rivals. It was a similar type of grand final a year later but on this occasion it was the Royals who emerged victorious by a mere 2 points. The season saw East Fremantle, which had finished the minor round in fourth place, participate in the ultimate game of the year for the fourth successive time.

The opposition was once more provided by Swan Districts, and at three quarter time it appeared certain that Old Easts would again be leaving Subiaco Oval empty handed. True, the margin between the sides was only 21 points, but given that Swans would be kicking with the aid of a substantial breeze in the final term this seemed of minimal relevance.

The events of that final quarter were such as to knit themselves into the very fabric of the East Fremantle club identity: players who had hardly been sighted suddenly tapped into resources they were unaware they had, while even those who had been playing reasonably well managed to take their performances to another plane altogether. In this context, the breeze might as well have been non existent, as indeed might the opposition afforded by most of the Swan Districts team.

East Fremantle added 9. Best afield and winner of the Simpson Medal was beanpole ruckman Dave Imrie, who later added the Lynn Medal for club champion for good measure. It was to be six long years - arguably, the longest, bleakest six years in the entire history of the club - before East Fremantle would again be in a position to mount a serious challenge for the flag. After dropping to fourth in - bad enough in itself - the side spent the next four Septembers watching the finals action from the outer rather than participating at first hand.

By , however, there was a new generation of exciting talent at the club. With players like Dave Hollins who won the Sandover Medal , Max Van Helden, Graham Melrose and Les Holt to the fore, and under the astute coaching of a young Victorian by the name of Alan Joyce, East Fremantle overcame Claremont by 47 points in the first semi final and with a bit of good fortune would have tumbled eventual premiers West Perth in the preliminary final.

There was a slight improvement in as the side squeezed into the finals but East Perth achieved almost effortless supremacy in the first semi, winning by 59 points.

Three late goals to Perth made the final scoreline respectable. Others to do well for the victors included ruckmen Bob Becu and Ferguson, ruck rover Dave Hollins, and 4 goal full forward Paul Nicholls. After the grand final East Fremantle headed to Adelaide for the Australian club championships where it lost to Sturt by 9 points and overcame a Tasmanian combined side without even needing to try.

The second half of the s was especially noteworthy for the emergence of Brian Peake as one of the most prodigious talents in the game. However, not even Peake could enable East Fremantle to maintain a position of pre-eminence in Western Australian football. The season brought yet another in the sequence of spectacular nosedives which have tended to beset East Fremantle over the past four decades or so.

The side finished sixth, with just 10 wins, and looked to be well and truly on the skids, but the following year was to bring yet another spectacular reversal of fortune, only this time of the right kind. Under new skipper Brian Peake, now sporting trademark '70's facial hair, Old East fielded an all Western Australian combination in in what was a noteworthy season all round for Western Australian football see footnote 9.

As a matter of fact, the side looked distinctly mediocre at times during the home and away rounds, losing on one occasion to Claremont by 86 points, and on another even less auspicious occasion to East Perth by points. This latter defeat was the first ever time that East Fremantle had lost a game by more than points.

Once the finals arrived, however, it was a different story. The blue half of Fremantle had enjoyed marginal supremacy over the red half during 2 wins to 1 and grand final day saw their dominance extended. The Old East yo-yo syndrome quickly reasserted itself in as the club endured one of its worst ever senior campaigns, finishing seventh with just 5 wins from 21 starts.

Things were not quick to improve either as the side went on to miss the finals in both seventh again - 5 wins and 16 losses and for sixth place with 8 wins, 13 losses. In the Western Australian club with arguably the richest tradition of all took the drastic measure of divorcing itself to some extent from that tradition by adopting a new emblem, that of the arch predator of the sea, the shark. It was felt by the newly expanded club board that the introduction of this emblem would render the club more attractive to potential sponsors at a time when the sponsorship dollar was becoming increasingly critical to achieving and maintaining success.

There was to be no return to premiership glory, however: in the first semi final reigning and eventual back to back premiers Swan Districts emphasised that the Sharks still had something of a mountain to scale by winning easily by 59 points. The Sharks had performed consistently well for most of the season to finish the home and away rounds in second spot, a single win behind the Swans.

They then astounded most observers by going straight into the grand final with a The premiership seemed theirs for the taking. However, when the big day arrived, with Swan Districts predictably again providing the opposition, many of the younger East Fremantle players froze; by quarter time, the match was as good as over, with Swans having surged to a Even in the second term, when the Sharks fought back determinedly to get to within a couple of straight kicks, it was clear that the finals hardened men from Bassendean held too much in reserve.

After half time they again kicked clear and although East Fremantle ultimately managed to equal their tally of a fortnight previously, on this occasion it left them six goals adrift, Swan Districts winning Despite the disappointment of a losing grand final there was considerable optimism at East Fremantle Oval as the team prepared for the season.

The side lost on only 3 further occasions all year, with 2 of those defeats coming in the final 2 rounds of the season after the minor premiership had been clinched. The finals did not prove to be quite the cakewalk expected, however. Subiaco, which had lowered its colours to the Sharks in 2 out of 3 meetings during the minor round see footnote 10 , provided stern opposition in both the second semi final, which it lost by 12 points, and grand final, when both sides had 27 scoring shots and the margin was just 5 points.

Midway through the final quarter of the grand final East Fremantle enjoyed a comfortable lead only for the Lions, if the pun can be excused, to come roaring home; with the scores at The Lions had ample revenge over the Sharks in winning an anti climactic grand final by 69 points, this after the Sharks had triumphed with deceptive ease in the second semi final, winning The seeping alterations to the football landscape which had been occurring since the s suddenly burgeoned into a full-scale cataclysm in with the admission of Perth-based West Coast and Brisbane to an expanded VFL.

At a stroke, the WAFL competition was denuded of more than 40 of its best players, with East Fremantle, which lost no fewer than 14 members of its squad see footnote 11 , among the worst affected. Despite this, the Sharks ran a creditable third in , as indeed they did in and Peake, who also spent four seasons with Geelong, was certainly a highly decorated player, winning six Lynn Medals, a Sandover, and the Tassie Medal, as well as making 22 interstate appearances for Western Australia, gaining selection in three All Australian teams, and playing in three East Fremantle premiership combinations.

In , he crossed to Perth where he played a further 10 games for a career total of more than In , they again won the grand final. Share: Facebook Twitter. Commenting is closed on this page, though you can read some previous comments below which may answer some of your questions.

Well not every sport, as there is a list of unusual sports , extinct sports and newly created sports. How to get on these lists? See What is a sport? AFL Grand Final parade in A further thirteen people have won the Bernie Naylor medal for the WA leagues leading goal kicker — including George Doig who wont the award six times four of them back to back from George Doig is impossible to write off with a single sentence.

In , he was the first person to kick goals in a season in WAFL history he would go on to break the century in eigh different seasons. In he kicked goals for the season, which was an Australian record that stood until when it was broken by Bernie Naylor himself goals. The same year he kicked a then record 19 goals in a single match. Over nine years, Doig kicked goals at an average of a season and more than 5 goals per game.

He kicked a further 62 goals from 14 State matches. You must be logged in to post a comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam.