Five years after joining the Australian Football League in 1987 the West Coast Eagles won its first premiership with a convincing win over Geelong.
This was a historic win which changed the sport itself and heralded years of prominence and dominance in Australia’s most popular sport. Additionally the victory gave impetus to the credibility of Western Australian sport at a wider level and struck a blow to the tyranny of distance factor which mitigates against sport in our State.
The Eagles victory also reflected their trend setting ability to put together an organisation in an off-field sense which made them the envy of many other teams in the AFL. They made Western Australia proud and deserve a special place amongst our sporting champions.
