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Breaking news this morning

Luke Blackwell , Andrew Foster , Trinity Handley & Matt Orzel will retire after tomorrow's final round of fixtures

Blackwell is returning to Vicco for personal reasons


Source: West online

Yeah, Blackwell had indicated earlier he may not continue, big loss, outstanding 2nd half of the season. All 4 will be hard to replace.
Hear the boys are fired up to beat EP this weekend, the only side they've not beaten this season.
Ironic, the two form sides Claremont & South are out of the finals race, the other non aligned clubs are up and down at the moment, hopefully the Eagles pull players out and East Perth drop out in straight sets!

Very good WAFL players, Tigers will miss this group but have enough to cover in 2015

Just read the article, interesting that Blackwell nominated the 2010 Grand Final as his biggest regret in football. Not surprising given Claremont were unbackable favourites. What a difference a point makes!

Good luck to all the retirees

and no Chad Jones too mikeh!! ..........Blackwell will be sorely missed.......only player who could replace him is Kane Mitchell I reckon.......be interested to see if Ledger can fill his shoes.......

Add Beau and Richo(maybe) and the Tigers will be a force. The West Perth have made approaches to Lynch and Bradley so they will be good if they pull those two off and expect East Perth to lose 4 or 5 home-grown players....next year will be very interesting

And Claremont would be pondering about their poor first half of the season. Powering along after the half way point and winning 8 of their last 9 games. Despite losing before mentioned players, the coach was saying the clubs depth of other available players should be able to cover the retirees.

westaussieguy wrote: And Claremont would be pondering about their poor first half of the season. Powering along after the half way point and winning 8 of their last 9 games. Despite losing before mentioned players, the coach was saying the clubs depth of other available players should be able to cover the retirees.

Best side in the comp at the minute and not even in the finals.

thing is they were one of the worst sides in the comp for the first half of the season....frustrating for Cl fans, but that's why a home & away season is played over 20 games and not 7!......Cl have no one even close enough to replace Blackwell, he is a huge loss......be interested to see who Cl find to replace him over the off season.....saying that Cl reserves and colts are always full to brim with promising talent.

Mikeh, Foster also said that the 2010 loss still hurts
Edstark, heard South through new coach Curly are making are red hot crack at Bradley, mates at West Perth & think Curly had a coaching role at the Dockers also.
Well done to the Reserves & Colts in making the finals. Ressies will have a strong group to draw on without the League side in the finals.
2015 looks promising, need to hold on to Franz (FB), McCallister (CHB), Starcevich (CHF) gain the services of Beau Wilkes/Maisten (FF) and pray like hell that Seaby goes around again. Need to look for someone of class to replace Blackwell, his leadership rose to new heights, heard it was not only Broadbridge that pulled players aside halfway through the season, heard Blackwell took a few aside and told them a few home truths in choice language, big turn around from Ledger no surprise. A few more past players may return next season, hope we hold on to most from this year, growing trend of players in the WAFL either travelling or leaving in mid to late 20ies.
Hats off to East Perth players & coaching staff in their kind gesture in forming a line after the game to salute Blackwell, Foster, Handley & Orzel.
2015 looks like being rather interesting for the WAFL, at this stage AAMI have pulled out as major sponsor, no TV coverage, and radio coverage dwindling to only 3 games covered a week in 2014.