Dawson proud to lead Royals to first grand final in 11 yearsFriday, September 20, 2013 - 11:54 AM - by Chris Pike

BRIAN Dawson might be in his first year as coach of East Perth but has quickly picked up the rivalry his club has with West Perth as he looks to lead the Royals to their first premiership since 2002, and his second in the last four years.

Dawson has had a remarkable four years as a senior coach in the WAFL now never having one of his teams finishing worse off than in a preliminary final.

After coaching Swan Districts' reserves to a premiership in 2006, Dawson took over as league coach at Swans in 2008 taking the black-and-whites to a grand final in 2008, preliminary final in 2009 and then to the premiership in 2010 before stepping down following that triumph.

After two years away from coaching a club, Dawson replaced Tony Micale at East Perth and has now done a tremendous job to get the Royals into the 2013 grand final this Sunday against West Perth at Patersons Stadium.

Dawson has now coached in three Perth derbies this season so has picked up the rivalry with West Perth quickly heading into Sunday's grand final, but more importantly he is just proud and happy for his new club that they are back in a grand final for the first time since 2002.

"I've quickly caught up on the rivalry with three games against them already this year so we've had a good induction to what is coming in the grand final. I would sincerely hope that there is a crowd of 30,000-plus there next week to see what should be a cracking game," Dawson said.

"Claremont have dominated the comp and this would have been their fourth straight grand final so it is good to get a change to those usual teams in the grand finals every now and then.

"But it's just great for the club to be back there because 11 years is a long time and East Perth is a proud and successful club, but 11 seasons between grand finals is one of the club's longest droughts so it's great to help them get back in there."

Two senior players that Dawson always respected from afar, but now has even more respect for having coached them is former skipper Michael Swan, and current co-captain Craig Wulff. Dawson is delighted for both to now get their first opportunity to play in a grand final on Sunday.

"It's fantastic for them and that's why you play the game. Swanny's played 170-odd games and Wulffy 220-odd and they have never played in a grand final," Dawson said.

"It's overdue for those blokes but it's great for everyone. You especially feel really pleased for those sorts of guys, though, because they have been around a long time and it's a great thing to finally get there."

East Perth has continued to improve more and more the longer the 2013 season has gone culminating in likely what was the Royals' best performance all year in last Sunday's 63-point preliminary final win over the two-time reigning premiers Claremont at Claremont Oval.

Two players who Dawson credits with the Royals' improvement who weren't there due to injury in the first half of the year – are Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls and Kyle Anderson.

Oakley-Nicholls has been in good form whether at half-forward, on the wing and most recently off half-back, but Anderson has continued to build his reputation as one of the very best lockdown defenders in the competition.

"He (Anderson) is the bloke who we sorely missed at the start of the season and people can forget about that pretty easily, but we didn’t have Oakley-Nicholls or Anderson for the first eight or 10 games and those two have made a big difference since coming back," he said.

"Anderson is a really quality defender and having the likes of Selwood and Cripps available has allowed us to play Oakley-Nicholls in the back half as well. We also think we have improved overall across the season and you always have the goal to play your last game much better than the first game, and we will need to play even better than we did this week to win."

As for last Sunday's preliminary final win over Claremont, Dawson was certainly surprised by the eventual 63-point margin but is focused on how proud he is of his playing group to win into the Royals' first grand final in 11 years.

"We certainly would not have in our wildest dreams expected to have won by 10 goals, but we were confident that if we brought our best to the table that we could get across the line," he said.

"We knew it would be tough and they have had a great run of the competition in the last few years Claremont and you don't give that up easily. I know they will be bitterly disappointed with the result, but in some senses cycles always come to an end and sometimes it's when you don’t expect it.

"They have really dominated the comp for three or four seasons and it's a bitter pill for them, but great for us because East Perth haven’t been in a grand final for 11 seasons."

It was a tremendous performance by East Perth to beat Claremont with Brendan Lee dominant in the midfield with 31 possessions and 13 clearances while Paul Johnson dominated his ruck battle with Mark Seaby with 26 disposals, 35 hit outs, nine clearances and two goals.

Mat Seal and Josh Smith both kicked four goals with Jamie Cripps adding three, Freddie Clutterbuck two, Michael Swan two and Adam Selwood two while Craig Wulff had 26 touches and Aaron Sweet 21. Dawson couldn’t have been more proud of the efforts of all 22 of his Royals players.

"The boys were fantastic and I couldn’t have been prouder with the way they went about it, and stuck at the task," Dawson said.

"They were challenged a few times by Claremont, particularly in the third quarter when they came at us two or three times and almost levelled up, but the boys were good enough to hold firm, stand up and keep that two or three goal buffer and then break it open just before three quarter-time.

"Our defence went really well and they were helped by the midfield, but individually the backs did their jobs manfully which was great."