TOPIC:

Senior Seagull wrote: Harding was an exceptionally good ruckman, very consistent, yes those two were very similar but Harding had the edge in class and a lovely left foot. Big laurie started out as a FF and was kicking bags each week as he was so hard to match up on, but was always going to be a ruckman. I think Bunts considered Scotty was good enough to down the 1st ruck spot on most occassions and Keene was more value up forward and doing the forward rucking. But Lauries game winning performance in the 88 flag against very good opposition showed just how good a ruckman he was.

I don’t agree with you there SS, the 88 grand final didn’t show how good Laurie is. At that time Laurie was possibly the best ruckman (or close to it) in the country, but from memory he couldn’t stay on the park for the Eagles that season and ended up playing four or five games for Subi on return from injuries that season to qualify for wafl finals. I can’t recall f he had been playing VFL finals for the Eagles in the preceding weeks? Anyway, him dominating Higgins and Melesso in the ruck that day wasn’t that surprising.

As an outsider having seen both the 1986 and the 2000s Subi sides you would have to be kidding yourself if you think the 2000s would get within 10 goals of the 86 side!
The 1986 side contained- Featherby, D.Lamb, Dean, O'Loughlin, Scott, Sells, MacNish, Georgiades, Breman, Crutchfield, Langdon, Keene, Zanotti, Dargie etc who had or would go on to play in a stronger afl than the current incumbent whilst others the likes of N.Taylor, C.Brown, B.Taylor, Lee, Carpenter, Mort, P.Lamb, Wilkinson were very good WAFL players in an era a mile stronger than this century!

A major controversy if I remember. Keene hadn’t played enough games to qualify yet was allowed to play because of some technicality. If I was a Claremont supporter I wouldn’t have been too happy at the time. Although it must be said Subi completely outplayed them, almost identical to the ‘86 GF against EF. Bunton was the master of the ambush.

BH: two players whom might have got near the 1986 team were: Newick, Smith.

Perth had a very good side in 1986 and gave it a good shake. Good win over Claremont in the first semi final and gave Subiaco a good contest in the prelim from memory. Mick “Stinger” Rae kicked a ton to win the Bernie Naylor. What a lethal combination he was with Wayne “The Night” Ryder.

Cesspit wrote: A major controversy if I remember. Keene hadn’t played enough games to qualify yet was allowed to play because of some technicality. If I was a Claremont supporter I wouldn’t have been too happy at the time. Although it must be said Subi completely outplayed them, almost identical to the ‘86 GF against EF. Bunton was the master of the ambush.

He was a travelling emergency with WCE a couple of times which the WAFL construed to be a qualifying game for the WAFL as he didn't play VFL/AFL and that got him over the line which is the case today...so nothing to see here.

DD -- too true -- big Mick and ES in the key forward positions alone would be too much for our mid 2000s side.

Beasley Hutton wrote: As an outsider having seen both the 1986 and the 2000s Subi sides you would have to be kidding yourself if you think the 2000s would get within 10 goals of the 86 side!
The 1986 side contained- Featherby, D.Lamb, Dean, O'Loughlin, Scott, Sells, MacNish, Georgiades, Breman, Crutchfield, Langdon, Keene, Zanotti, Dargie etc who had or would go on to play in a stronger afl than the current incumbent whilst others the likes of N.Taylor, C.Brown, B.Taylor, Lee, Carpenter, Mort, P.Lamb, Wilkinson were very good WAFL players in an era a mile stronger than this century!

Totally agree BH.Tier2 v Tier1.

Interesting theoretical comparison of the 2 sides.

The 1986 team would obviously win easily, if you were basing it on sheer talent.

However, I wonder how their fitness levels would compare to the modern Subi sides, and whether they would have been over-run based on fitness during the course of the game.

jack: no, the reason being that their talent would have them too far out in front. If the 1981 CL played against the 2000s subi side it would have had 30 goals by three quarter-time. The CL side of the day could mark, kick, hand-ball, tackle, chase, shepherd, lead, kick to leading players, but most of all the players of that side could actually take on the opposition --- there was no back had balls, kicks backwards, kicks sideways and so on -- and could beat the opposition.

Keep in mind that the 1986 Subi side nearly beat Hawthorn and thrashed ST Kilda kicking 25.25 for the match.