Phelan's sole focus on Grand Final before deciding futureSaturday, September 22, 2018 - 12:09 PM - by Chris Pike

THERE is the pain of the past two years that nobody at Subiaco wants to feel again and the chance to create history, but for Chris Phelan he is just hoping to celebrate a third WAFL premiership before deciding on what his future holds.

Phelan has had yet another outstanding season with the Lions coming off a knee injury that at one point did threaten his career in 2017. But he did make it back for that second straight Grand Final loss against Peel last year and now has gone on to have a tremendous 2018.

That has seen the 167-game veteran, dual premiership winner and two-time fairest and best average another 28.1 disposals as part of a dominant Subiaco midfield alongside captain and good mate Kyal Horsley, Leigh Kitchin and Josh Deluca with ruckman Zac Clarke feeding them sublimely.

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Phelan is now preparing to play in the sixth Grand Final of his career on Sunday at Optus Stadium against West Perth desperate to make up for the losses the last two years against Peel and add to his premiership triumphs of 2014 and 2015.

There's a lot of talk on the outside about Subiaco responding to those last two Grand Final losses and also their quest to become the first team since 1946 to win a flag by going through the season undefeated, but they aren’t things Phelan and his Lions teammates are focusing on.

"The last two years have certainly hurt the boys, the ones that played, and you certainly don’t want to go through that again. It's definitely a driving factor, but we don’t talk about it too much and the past is the past. It does put a bit more fire in the belly that's for sure though," Phelan said.

"We try not to talk about things that don’t affect what we need to do to give ourselves the best chance to win the game. We especially don't mention the last two Grand Finals but the fact that we're undefeated is something you can look at two ways too I suppose. 

"We can go in really confident knowing that we haven’t lost a game or other people might try to put the pressure on us about what it would be like if we lost. 

"But we certainly don't talk about it too much and have to focus on what we're about. We have to treat it like any other game even though there's a bit more pressure with it being a Grand Final. We try to not put any more pressure on ourselves than is necessary."

Now that the Grand Final is closing in and the countdown is almost over after Subiaco earned the weekend off after beating South Fremantle in the second semi-final at Leederville Oval, Phelan is getting excited especially to get to play at Optus Stadium for the first time.

"It's all getting pretty exciting and obviously being at the stadium for the Sandover gave us the chance to get a bit of a feel for it even though obviously we haven’t been allowed on the ground yet," Phelan said. 

"That made it all feel a bit more real and I'll just try to get through Saturday and keep myself busy, I'll go into work for a little bit, and you want to avoid playing out the game too early in your head. But it should be a good game and hopefully we get a good crowd.

"Hopefully there's a bigger crowd than we've ever played in front of before, that would be a factor, but it's hard to tell what it's going to be like.

"It really is an unknown for both teams and it's the same for both of us so it won't advantage or disadvantage either of us over the other. It is a bit of an unknown what it's going to be like."

It will certainly be a fresh Subiaco that runs out onto Optus Stadium on Sunday after they finished as minor premiers again to earn the week off in the first week of the finals. 

They then earned the week off again last weekend by winning the second semi-final and Phelan isn’t necessarily sure if that gives them an edge or a disadvantage ahead of playing West Perth in the Grand Final, but they do have experience both entering the big day on a break and without one.

"We've been in the same position a couple of times now when we've gone in as favourites but we've done both. Back in 2014 we came in as underdogs and we had to play the prelim to get there, but this year is similar to 2015 and 16 when we were favourites again," he said.

"It's not new and you don’t want to get too excited and play the game out in your head too early, but it has its advantages too. 

"We've been able to study West Perth a fair bit and we were studying South Freo as well up until Sunday obviously, but it's allowed us to work on our game to the way we need to play against them.

"It definitely has its advantages but its disadvantages too when we've only played one game in four weeks. For me, being an older bloke is probably a good thing but either way you look at it there are pros and cons, but we just have to stick to what we know and we've been there before."

Not only is Subiaco's league side in a fifth straight Grand Final of which Phelan has taken part in all of them for wins in 2014 against East Perth and 2015 against West Perth, and losses the past two years against Peel, but it's a huge day for everyone at the Lions.

Subiaco's colts and reserves both finished the season as minor premiers and have now advanced to Grand Finals on Sunday and Phelan has certainly noticed the excitement build around the club.

"Back in 2007 I think we had two teams in but obviously the colts haven’t been in for a while so it's really exciting for that group," Phelan said.

"It just makes training that much better and even when the reserves boys aren’t in, they still come down and help out but they're obviously not as excited because they're not still playing.

"But with everyone still playing it's probably the best feel we've had around the whole club in my time there. That's certainly exciting."

While Phelan might feel his form of 2018 isn't quite what it has been in his fairest and best winning seasons, but that's perhaps being tough on himself given the impact he is still having on a team that is undefeated this season.

He is averaging 28.1 touches a game and was named to the WAFL Team of the Year on the wing on top of still polling 17 Sandover Medal votes on Monday night.

While his body is feeling pretty good, Phelan has just enjoyed being part of such a prolific midfield at the Lions this season.

"The body is feeling good and I certainly haven’t had any trouble with my knee even though my groin has been a little bit sore of late, but that's another story," Phelan said.

"Obviously last year I didn’t know how the knee was going to recover last year but it's good to be playing some good footy again. I don’t think I'm playing as well this year as I have the last few years, but I still hope I'm able to contribute and Schoey hasn’t told me otherwise. 

"It's a great group we have in there. Joshy has developed into a hard-working, tough inside midfielder and he just adds a little bit extra to what we already had. 

"Kitch is similar to him and then me and Hors are more of the inside, outside players who tend to get on the end of their work and get it down to the forwards.

"Then having Zac there after we've played without a genuine ruckman for so many years when we generally went into stoppages with more of a defensive mindset. But having big Zac there gives us more freedom to run some more patterns which has certainly helped us out."

Speaking of Horsley and the Sandover Medal, the Subiaco captain finished five votes behind winner Jye Bolton for the fourth top-three finish of his career and Phelan couldn’t help but feel for him.

"I was devastated for him. When that leaderboard came up after the first five rounds and he only had nine votes, everyone was left scratching their heads as to where all the votes went," he said.

"He is an absolute champion of the game and he could have won two at least by now, if not three and he would deserve that. 

"I was shattered for him on Monday night and he probably won't say anything about it, and it's not that Jye isn't a worthy winner, but Hors had one of his best years in one of the best careers that I've seen. I thought he was robbed to be honest."

Now that he's 30 years of age, Phelan is taking each season of his career as it comes and like Horsley and even fellow veteran teammate Clancy Wheeler, he's not sure what his future beyond Sunday's Grand Final holds just yet.

"I haven’t spoken too much with Clancy about what he's doing, but I'm obviously very close with Hors and he's in a similar boat to me. he hasn’t locked anything away yet and we'll wait to see if we get through the year and weigh up heading into next year if we still think we have it in us," Phelan said.

"I haven’t locked anything in yet, I'm not 100 per cent certain if I'll play on or not. I'll get through Sunday and hopefully without any injuries, and we'll go from there. 

"If you ask my girlfriend, I won't be playing next year I think she's had enough, but seriously she'll be fine if I played on. But I haven’t made any decisions yet either way."