Eardley to embrace chance with new lease on lifeThursday, September 22, 2022 - 1:42 PM - by Chris Pike

IT has been quite the arduous wait for Cam Eardley to get back to another WAFL preliminary final and it's taken a positional change that he wasn’t initially sold on along the way, but the East Fremantle star veteran can't wait for the opportunity.

Eardley returned to East Fremantle in 2014 after spending two years in the AFL system with Geelong fully expecting that he might be part of a Sharks team that was going to be part of another successful era.

After all, East Fremantle had made the Grand Final in 2012 before losing to Claremont and then in that first season of WAFL league football for Eardley in 2014, he was a key member in the midfield of a Sharks team that reached a preliminary final.

Eardley and current teammates Matthew Jupp and Ryan Lester-Smith were part of that preliminary final against Subiaco at Leederville Oval and you don't need to tell them that the Sharks blew their chances.

They did that in the most literal sense by kicking 7.26 for the day to lose by five points and then have to see Subiaco go on to win the premiership a week later.

By that stage, Eardley had every reason to expect there would be more chances to get that elusive first East Fremantle premiership of this century but it hasn’t been the case.

It hasn’t been through any fault of his as he cemented himself as one of the best and most consistent midfielders in the competition but it was lean pickings for East Fremantle without a finals appearance until this year.

That's all changed in 2022 with the Sharks finishing the season in second spot and then beating Claremont in the qualifying final before losing to West Perth in last Saturday's second semi-final.

However, they've earned a chance to host this Sunday's preliminary final against Claremont at New Choice Homes Park and Eardley can't wait especially to be playing it at Shark Park.

"For me I love it. It's fantastic and we should have been playing there all year had we known that everything was going to be pushed back, but to return to Shark Park in front of the home crowd was a nice feeling against Claremont a couple of weeks ago," Eardley said.

"It will be no different this weekend and we expect a big crowd with no AFL footy on to clash with or anything. It's a good feeling playing in front of that home crowd and we've trained at the ground all year still. So it's going to be great to get back out there in a prelim."

What the hard times over the last eight years in between preliminary finals has done for Eardley along with his long-time teammates like Jupp and Lester-Smith is appreciate that opportunities like this don't come around too often.

Eardley and his Sharks teammates will be throwing everything at getting to a first Grand Final since 2012 and then attempting to win a first flag since 1998. If they achieve it, that quiet moment with the three remaining players from 2014 will be something special.

"I thought I had the chance to reflect during last week or in the lead up to the West Perth game about just how close we were to playing in a Grand Final and how long it had been since I had that opportunity," Eardley said. 

"Eight years is a long time in footy not to play a finals so there's a few of us in the team as senior players who really appreciate the opportunity and the privilege to play finals football. It's been a long time and I think we're increasingly aware of that. 

"I think it would be pretty special if we got into the Grand Final and then if we went on and won it. I think there'd be a bit of a time for us three especially to reflect on how long our footy journey has been together, and how long we've played trying to achieve that ultimate goal."

As a midfield star of the competition having played twice for the WAFL State Team as well as regular high placings in the Lynn Medal, Eardley was still a prolific midfielder when the call came from coach Bill Monaghan early last season.

Monaghan was looking to give more prominence in the midfield to the likes of Kyle Baskerville and Milan Murdock and he saw a role for Eardley at half-back.

Eardley might not have been immediately sold on the move, but to say it's worked out well would be one of the great understatements.

He has proven a natural in the role and become one of the best attacking defenders in the competition along with one of the better intercept defenders to chop off opposition forays forward.

Eardley has become a great attacking weapon averaging 27.5 possessions a game throughout the season and 145 games into his WAFL career, it's given him a new lease on life even if he had his doubts when first told of the move.

"To be completely honest I probably thought that maybe I had more midfield time in my legs, but after accepting it and then looking at the influx of young talent that we had coming through, I sorted of accepted that new role pretty quickly," he said.

"It has helped to give more opportunity to Milan Murdock, Kyle Baskerville and Tom Bennett, and those kids are actually the future of East Freo. So the quicker I was able to accept that and move on, and cop it on the chin and started learning the craft as a defender, the better. 

"It probably took a while but I'm extremely happy with the move now. I'm certainly not that 22, 23-year-old that I was and I'm not pulling up as well from games as I used. So being able to play a bit less of a combative role has been nice in a number of ways. 

"I've also moved down to Juppy and to play my last few years with him in the back-line has been awesome."

It has been a mixed bag so far in East Fremantle's return to finals action with a terrific performance in the qualifying final to beat Claremont by 48 points before losing last Saturday in the second semi-final to West Perth by 20 points.

The Sharks' pressure game was brilliant against the Tigers to open the finals. While Eardley admits to his team not playing at their best against the Falcons, the fact was they still were in the contest and not too far away.

That leaves them confident that they can produce another strong showing on Sunday on their home deck against Claremont with a Grand Final spot up for grabs.

"It was a little bit disappointing Saturdays' result and I think collectively we probably knew that we didn’t play our best. To still be in the game during the last quarter despite that was a positive we can take from it," Eardley said.

"We completely are not open to the idea that if we can put together a better performance that the result could have gone the other way, or can go the other way if we get another chance against them in two weeks' time.

"The message has been the same from the coaching staff really throughout the entire finals series to basically just treat it like it's even another game even though it's obviously not. 

"I hate to be cliché, but that has been the message and that's how we've tried to approach each game exactly how we did the 20 rounds during the regular season. 

"We just try to play our brand of football and let the result take care of itself. Clearly that didn’t work on the weekend but we probably didn’t play how we would have liked. 

"There's certainly more pressure moving into the game on Sunday because it really is the last chance moving into the Grand Final, but that messaging from the coaches will be consistent to what it has been where we follow our game plan and process. We'll be confident that if we do so the result should take care of itself."

For a lot of reasons Sunday's preliminary final is fascinating and none the least because East Fremantle has dominated Claremont in their past two meetings over the last month.

However, that brings up the prospect that the Sharks could continue to have the better of the Tigers or Claremont might indeed turn it around, and Eardley knows East Fremantle has to be at their best to win again.

"It can go one of two ways and we can either approach the game potentially a little bit complacent given we've had the wood over that team the last two times we've played," he said. 

"But we'll be making sure that doesn’t happen and then Claremont have probably got that extra fire in their bellies because they would have thought they might not have played their best the last two times. 

"It will be the messaging from the coaches that this game will probably be different than the last two encounters that we've had with them. We'll be expecting that and be ready for it, and personally I think Claremont will be a very different outfit and will come with a different intensity than we experienced in that first final for sure."

Having spent two years at Geelong, Eardley has a soft spot still for the Cats too so he will be watching Saturday's AFL Grand Final closely but any celebrations won't be held until the Sharks' season is done – which he hopes is after the drought breaking flag.

"My heart is definitely with Geelong in terms of the AFL even though I still have a bit of a soft spot for Freo after following them growing up," Eardley said.

"I've still followed Geelong pretty closely since moving back home and it's a bit of a shame I can't watch the game on Saturday and celebrate if they win, but it will be nice to just sit down and watch the game and appreciate it because I think it will be a pretty good one. 

"It could be a big weekend, but I will have to hold off on any celebrations and hopefully we can then have a real big celebration the next weekend."