2014 South Fremantle district grand final

I was lucky to attend the Australian Rules Football junior Grand Final fought between South Coogee, regarded as overwhelming favourites and Jandakot Jets on Sunday the 21st of September 2014 at Fremantle Oval. This is the home ground of the Fremantle Football Club, better known as the Dockers, a leading AFL professional football team. 

My nephew, Samuel De Jesus was deemed fit and selected to play despite only just recovering from a severe bout of the flu. He was able to train during the week ending up winning plenty of contested ball throughout the game.

The South Coogee Football Club, undefeated throughout the season was pitted against the fast running Jandakot Jets who have shown to be very competitive and capable. During the finals series, Jandakot proved to be more than capable of causing a major upset to the red hot favourites.

Fighting to the end and never giving up, the Jandakot Jets made the most of their limited scoring opportunities kicking 4.0 (24) with South Coogee booting 9.9 (63) to remain undefeated during the 2014 season to become 2014 premiers. 

The conditions were wet and slippery, the rains started just before bounce down with the showers increasing as the game progressed. The day before, a record September day of sunshine saw the mercury hit 36 degrees Celsius, Sunday was a whole different issue.

Marking the ball was extremely difficult under such adverse conditions, moving the ball forward from every contest was slow with no team breaking the game open.

Plenty of packs developed around the ball, there was plenty of stoppages with the umpires calling play-on at every opportunity. When kicking out from goal, the old style huddle saw players breaking into space with set plays. 

The handball was the key to success under such trying conditions, moving the ball out of congestion and into clear space paid dividends. Fast ball movement, run and carry and kicking long didn't work, the team that quickly adapted to the conditions was the team that was going to dominate.

The game was broken open in the final term, Jandakot was still in with a big chance halfway through the quarter with South Coogee belting through a host of unanswered goals to finally shatter the aspirations of the Jandakot players.