Spearhead Strijk wants Falcons to turn heat on LionsThursday, September 20, 2018 - 12:28 PM - by Chris Pike

HAVING accepted he's likely to spend the rest of his career at full-forward, Andrew Strijk sees no reason West Perth can't continue to defy the odds and turn the heat on Subiaco in Sunday's Grand Final and win a premiership as hefty underdogs.

Strijk's one premiership of his career came in 2013 when West Perth entered the Grand Final against an East Perth team who were warm favourites.

But the Falcons were simply a more committed, determined and well-drilled outfit that afternoon to win the Grand Final and they delivered a similar performance last Sunday to end a nine-game losing run against South Fremantle to win the preliminary final by 26 points.

That sees West Perth advance to this Sunday's Grand Final at Optus Stadium against a Subiaco team that hasn’t lost yet in 2018. But Strijk believes that can work in the Falcons' favour as long as they come with the right intensity and put the pressure back on the Lions early.

"I think we're still underrated and underdogs which is fair enough at this stage. Subi haven’t lost a game all year but it also means that comes with a lot of pressure and stigma around that," Strijk said.

"I don’t know if I'd want to be in that position, I'd rather be in our position because we have a fair crack at it if we play like we did on the weekend against South. It did feel like that 2013 Grand Final against East Perth when we just put that pressure on and ended up running over them. 

"We were heavy underdogs that day as well but it was similar last week where we won comfortably because we turned the screws. 

"If we play the footy we know we can play now on Sunday, we know we can beat anyone and it doesn’t matter if it's a Subi team who haven’t lost this year. We know if we play the way we can, and lift even more, we can beat any team."

It was a remarkable turnaround by West Perth to win the preliminary final over a South Fremantle team that they had lost to by 98 points just two weeks earlier in the qualifying final.

However, a tough training load heading into the start of finals might not have had West Perth quite fresh enough for that qualifying final, but what it could have done was put them in good stead for the subsequent wins over Claremont and the Bulldogs to reach the Grand Final.

Whether it's proven a master stroke by club's fitness staff and coach Bill Monaghan is something Strijk won't know until Sunday, but he'd always back in the club's longest ever serving coach.

"I'll tell you on Monday or Sunday afternoon if it worked or not but that was the plan moving forward to get us up and going for a run at the premiership," he said.

"While it might have hurt us in that first final against South Fremantle, hopefully it will hold us in good stead for the next three weeks now. If we get the chocolates on Sunday then I think it was a bit of a masterstroke by our S&C staff.

"Bill has been my coach for the last 10 years and he's a fantastic coach, and I'm not surprised with the job that he's done this year. He does deserve a lot of credit with helping us deal with a lot of the off-field stuff and there's been a lot of speculation over where he is going to be next year as well. 

"But for him to stay focused on the playing group and to keep us focused has been absolutely fantastic. 

"He is a great coach and will go down as one of the greatest coaches of our football club, and that's well deserved. I'm not really surprised with any of that, I've known Bill for a long time now and he's a fantastic coach and it's no surprise that he's done his job well."

Up until Round 5 this season, Stirjk had spent the majority of his decorated career at West Perth either playing at half-forward or half-back and being equally effective, damaging and match-winning in both roles.

But coach Bill Monaghan had always said he saw him as a potential full-forward and with a season-ending knee injury to Kody Manning and Blake Wilhelm coming into his own as a playmaker off half-back, the opportunity arose in Round 5 against Perth at Lathlain Park.

Strijk looked so at home and unstoppable earning seven shots for three goals that he went on to spend the rest of the season playing out of the goal square and he now accepts that it's unlikely that's going to change the rest of his career.

He went on to kick 43 goals for the home and away season to share the Bernie Naylor Medal with teammate Tyler Keitel while kicking a haul of eight in Round 7 against East Fremantle, a bag of five against Claremont in Round 11 and then four on another five occasions including the preliminary final.

"It was kind of the perfect storm in the sense that Kody and Rudy went down injured who both play that role in the forward-line," Strijk said.

"Blake Wilhelm also took my step at half-back and he's never looked back so with a combination of him playing so well and Kody and Rudy going out, it was logical that someone had to move forward.

"Bill spoke to me about it and it took a little bit to adjust and I did want to move back to half-back, but then I started to learn and grow into the role and started to really enjoy it. 

"I think that's where I'll be staying now until I finish my career. It seems to be the logical path for a lot of people near retirement, they tend to move forward and finish up there. It's getting pretty old down there now with me, Mike Lourey and Jay van Berlo."

While it's not a comparison he'd ever make and it's on a different scale, it is somewhat reminiscent of an aging Gary Ablett Snr finishing his career at full-forward at Geelong starting in 1993 and he went on to become unstoppable one-on-one.

Strijk is a similar body size and shape to Ablett, is equally tough to beat one-on-one, can take those similarly crafty one-handed marks and has that burst of speed off the mark while leading on top of a thumping right boot.

"That's not a comparison that I would make and I would love to be half that good, but you are a bit dependant on the delivery coming in," he said.

"But as long as the ball is coming in in a decent manner and on a quick play, I do consider myself to be a pretty difficult match up. I've got a few different tools I can use and it is good to try to use those and play a different sort of role, and experiment a little bit and change things up. It is good fun."

The partnership up forward Strijk has developed with Keitel is working a treat as well, and he doesn’t feel he'd be as successful in his role without them working in tandem.

"Tyler has had a fantastic season and it's funny because we're sort of playing this Batman and Robin type role where we work together as a pair, but really we're at very different ends of our career," he said. 

"I'll be finishing up in the next year or two, or maybe this year who knows, and I know Tyler has a good 10 or 12 years of footy in front of him. 

"The way he's playing now he is going to be a nightmare for opposition coaches for years to come. He's a good kid with a good attitude, and he's a fair chance to kick 60, 70 goals a year going forward."

Keitel has now delivered three strong seasons with West Perth firstly as a key defender in 2016 and now the last two years in attack. Strijk is surprised he's not already in the AFL system, but he feels the same about Luke Meadows, Aaron Black and Shane Nelson who keep feeding the pair.

"I joke with him and tell him that the more he feeds me and gives me goals the more the AFL clubs will look at that and be impressed with him playing that assist role," Strijk said.

"But seriously I genuinely believe he can have an impact at AFL level but I've said that about Luke Meadows, Aaron Black and Shane Nelson too and they haven’t got the opportunity. I can't speak for AFL clubs, but if I was a recruiter I would have one eye on Tyler along with Nelson, Black and Meadows."

It's far from a two-man show in West Perth's forward-line too with the likes of Keegan Knott, Jay van Berlo, Rudy Riddoch and Steve Potente making valuable contributions.

But for Riddoch and Potente, they both face a nervous selection wait this week after Riddoch came in and played well in the preliminary final as a late replacement for Potente. 

Up the other end, Tyson Moulton did the same taking the place of Ben King and Strijk doesn’t envy the job of Monaghan and the coaching staff this week.

"As good a coach as Bill is, I do not envy his position at the moment because it's going to be a very tough selection. Tyson Moulton and Rudy Riddoch came in for Potente and King, and Steve has been fantastic for us all year and so has Kingy," he said.

"I'm not even going to try and guess what the coaching staff will do with that, but it's a good position to be in. 

"I know it's going to hurt someone but teams that have to make those tough calls usually are a fair chance to win a premiership because of that depth. It shows the depth we have and I don’t know which way it will go, but it will be a very difficult decision for Bill and his mob."

As for the feeling on Sunday night when the Falcons had ended their hoodoo against South Fremantle to book a place in the Grand Final, it's a feeling that Strijk and his teammates made sure they savoured and they did expect to be able to turnaround their performance from two weeks earlier.

"It was an unbelievable feeling. It's a pretty special moment knowing you are going into a Grand Final and they are bloody hard to get into," Strijk said.

"I've played for 13 years and this is my third now and I know how rare they are, and that they are even harder to win. That feeling after Sunday's game was unbelievable and we were all ecstatic. But now it's obviously changed to having to get the job done one more time.

"I was surprised with the score but I'm not surprised that we won. We've lost the last nine in-a-row to South Fremantle but you look at the first two games this year and we only just lost those.

"We were getting closer and closer, but we had some pretty solid training sessions leading into that finals game with a heavy loading phase. 

"We thought that was a bit of an aberration and we turned it around to play some good footy against Claremont and we knew that we can beat South Fremantle, and that it was time to do it.

"It was just great that we executed the plan and everything fell our way. I was always confident we could win the match but the scoreline didn’t flatter them too much, I think they were a bit off too."

The preliminary final win over South Fremantle also allowed Strijk to be on the field as part of the last game of his former West Coast and WAFL State Team teammate Ashton Hams which he'll always remember fondly.

"I had a little chat to him after the game before he got carried off and sent him a text message later congratulating him," Strijk said.

"He's been a fantastic player for such a long time for that footy club and he's got a couple of premierships and Simpsons to show for it, and there's not much he hasn’t done for WAFL footy and South Fremantle. 

"He deserves everything that he gets and it's unfortunate that he couldn’t go through to a Grand Final, but I'm pretty glad he didn't because it means we're there. I'm proud of what he has accomplished and it's been great fun playing against him and as his teammate."