By Lance Jenkinson
Daniel Venables described the stunning West Coast Eagles comeback to win the AFL grand final by five points over Collingwood as “crazy”.
The young forward said the manner of the win, having to fight back from 29 points down early in the match, added an extra dimension to victory.
“We were just happy to win,” Venables said. “It just makes it that much better having to come from behind today.
“It’s just awesome, a good experience.”
Young defender Liam Duggan paid tribute to West Coast’s resilience.
When Collingwood banged on the opening five goals of the grand final, few would have predicted the Eagles to come back and win. As the game wore on, the Eagles got stronger and it was all to do with their ability to stay the course.
“They jumped us at the start, that’s for sure,” Duggan said.
“We were probably a bit rattly early on, but we kept pegging them back and got to the fourth quarter with scores level.
“It’s a grand final and you’ve just got to hang in there.”
Duggan felt like West Coast had all the momentum at three-quarter time.
Even when Collingwood kicked the first two goals of the last quarter, the Eagles belief did not wane. “I felt like we had momentum, but we just couldn’t bloody get the score on the board,” Duggan said. “We got our opportunity in the last couple of minutes and we knew it might take that long to break them, but we did.”
Then came the moment that will be talked about in the same reverence as Leo Barry’s mark, Matthew Scarlett’s toe poke and Tom Boyd’s long goal, the game sealing goal from West Coast midfielder Dom Sheed.
Tight up on the boundary and with barely any daylight between the goal posts from the angle where Sheed was taking his set shot, the left footer went back with a sweetly timed drop punt and pierced the middle for the victory.
“The iceman Dom Sheed gets one late and everyone erupts,” Duggan said with a big smile.
“He’s gone the drop punt as well.”
