Eagles Swallow Bitter Pill

The Age

Friday June 13, 2008

Steve Butler

WEST Coast is urging its players to move on from a bitter past rivalry with Essendon and help forge a new Eagles era with a win over the Bombers at Telstra Dome tonight.

John Worsfold's senior assistant coach, Peter Sumich, said a simmering tension between the two clubs - ignited by the 1990s rivalry between coaches Kevin Sheedy and Mick Malthouse - remained among older Eagles such as himself.

Sumich said before round three's western derby that Fremantle coach Mark Harvey and other Dockers staff and players who came from the Bombers, had brought with them an attitude of disrespect for the Eagles from the Victorian club.

Another West Coast assistant, Tony Micale, also last year accused Essendon of taking physical cheap shots against the Eagles, a day before the Bombers snatched a remarkable one-point win over their rivals at Telstra Dome in round 11.

But Sumich said Worsfold had ordered his players to forget about the past.

"There always has been (tension) - I think the Malthouse-Sheedy factor when we played, you all know there was a great rivalry," Sumich said. "Those two coaches got both sides riled up and when I played I always found something special against Essendon. You just wanted to really play hard against them.

"But John doesn't talk up those things; it's something that he doesn't go back to the past. These blokes, he wants them to make their own history," he said.

Sumich defended the omission of veterans Michael Braun and Chad Fletcher, saying both had enjoyed recent form spikes. He said Braun must rest a sore knee, and Fletcher had a sore back.

He believed the hardness of the Telstra Dome surface, the long plane trip and the six-day turnaround between games had been factored in for both players and that they would return to play against Geelong tomorrow week.

"Chad Fletcher's form's been great and Michael Braun, I think over the past two weeks has picked right up. Body-wise, if they were 100% cent to go, they would be here," he said.

© 2008 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home