Wulff still eyeing premiership ahead of 250th gameFriday, April 17, 2015 - 11:08 AM - by Chris Pike

EAST Perth co-captain Craig Wulff couldn’t be more proud to reach 250 games this Saturday with the club that holds a huge piece of his heart, but what he hopes more than anything is that it's third time lucky for that elusive premiership in 2015.

Wulff came through his colts career and made his league debut with East Perth with the club in the middle of winning a hat-trick of premierships between 2000-02.

He looked up those triple premiership stars and had every reason to expect he would get the chance to enjoy that premiership feeling before too long as well.

However, it took Wulff until 2013 and his 225th game to play first grand final and that finished with a loss to West Perth with him as co-captain. He then led the Royals into last year's grand final as well but again it ended in a loss to Subiaco.

Now in his fourth year as captain and someone who has won an FD Book Medal and is already a life member and has his name on the No. 13 locker while playing for WA twice and as captain once, Wulff will play his 250th match with East Perth this Saturday against Peel Thunder at Medibank Stadium.

By doing so, he becomes just the third player in the history of the Royals to play 250 games behind Ted (Square) Kilmurray (257) and Derek Chadwick (269), and he is understandably proud to reach the mark.

However, that ultimate team success is what continues to drive him on and he is confident the 2015 East Perth team can again be a contender. After a tough start against East Fremantle, the Royals have now beaten Swan Districts and Subiaco impressively leading into the clash with Peel.

"We definitely got a good kick up the butt in Round 1 and the last two games have been better but we still have a long way to go," Wulff said.

"We understand the things that we need to change to win that last game of the year so we will do what we need to do to win week in, week out but channel our thoughts on hoping to make finals, and then on a game style that will win us a grand final.

"At the end of the day, it's a great milestone for me and the club, but the most important thing is that we win to put ourselves in a good position on the ladder."

Wulff is glad that his milestone match on Saturday will be held at Medibank Stadium as well and is looking forward to having his wife Brooke, children Devan, Jai and Sienna, and the rest of his family, friends and supporters there for the occasion.

He has had a good run in milestone games winning against East Fremantle for his 100th and recording wins over Subiaco in his 150th and 200th, so he hopes that continues more than anything this Saturday.

"If it was away I wouldn’t miss a game so I could have it at home, but it's definitely nice for me to have it here and have our fans and my friends and family all welcome here. My oldest one understands it's a really important game and he is very competitive, a bit like me, and if things aren’t going our way I daresay he won't be too happy," he said.

"My first milestone was against East Fremantle for my 100th down there and we were about 40 points behind at half-time and we ended up getting up and winning late in the game. The last two have been against Subiaco. The 150th was really tight until the last 10 minutes when we just got over the line and then in my 200th we won a bit easier but still by a pretty small margin."

For the first 224 games of his remarkable WAFL career with East Perth where Wulff already stamped his name as one of the best and most popular figures in the history of his proud club, all he wanted was a chance at a premiership.

He saw his heroes like Devan Perry, Jeremy Barnard, Ryan Turnbull and Rod Wheatley enjoy a hat-trick of flags when he was a young man at East Perth, and his dream has always been to be a premiership player at the club he holds so dear.

However, his 225th match was the 2013 grand final loss to West Perth and then last year again it was a loss to Subiaco with the Royals going into both deciders as warm favourites before coming up short on Domain Stadium.

That burns away at Wulff but what he and his teammates are desperate to do is learn from the losses, and now they do have a chance at that elusive flag again in 2015.

"It makes you understand how hard they are to win. You get so close and you are touted as being favourites yet you don’t win and really it just comes down to who the better team is on the day. The rounds before that mean very little really and it's basically who has the most committed players on the day of the grand final," Wulff said.

"It just teaches you how hard they are to win. When you get there and in that first one we were hoping everything would go well and then there is that disappointment when it doesn’t. To suffer that two years in-a-row now it shows the qualities that are required to win and that's to have a fully committed team."