WA State Game history the top for BroadbridgeFriday, June 2, 2017 - 8:39 AM - by Chris Pike

CREATING history and being part of winning West Australian teams is nothing new for Michael Broadbridge but coaching the WAFL State Team to a drought breaking win in Melbourne takes the cake for him.

Broadbridge had previously been part of Western Australia's Teal Cup triumph in 1985 as a player and then also coached the WA State 18s team to a national championship in 1999, so winning with the Black Swans was nothing new to him.

But in his first season since stepping down as Claremont coach in the WAFL after three years and away from a regular involvement in top-level football, Broadbridge was only too happy to take on the challenge of trying to beat Victoria in Melbourne for the first time.

State Game – WAFL v VFL Match Report 

The challenge was a daunting one for WA heading to North Port Oval and trying to beat Victoria for the first time in Melbourne.

In different formats, no WA side had beaten the Big V on home soil in 23 previous attempts with the first back in 1904 and the most recent a 119-point defeat in 2007 at the same Port Melbourne venue.

Then with the likes of Liam Ryan, Marlion Pickett, Clint Jones, George Hampson, Patrick McGinnity and Chris Phelan either pulling out of the WAFL squad or being forced out through injury, Broadbridge could have been excused for beginning to get nervous.

But there was no need.

He and his coaching staff including Steve Malaxos, Clay McLernon, Garry Moss and Paul Johnson put together the perfect squad of 23 players to get the job done against this VFL team and on that ground.

With a good blend of experienced and big-bodied midfielders, strong defenders and a bit of X-factor in the forward-line with Ben Saunders, Leroy Jetta and Jack Bradshaw, the WAFL side proved far superior to that thrown up by the VFL.

The result was a dominant and impressive 63-point victory and history was made with a WA team beating Victoria in Melbourne for the first time in 24 attempts ending a 113-year drought since that first loss in 1904.

Broadbridge couldn’t be prouder to go down in history as the coach of the WAFL team that broke the drought in Melbourne. It will go down as his greatest achievement in football.

But he sees the bigger picture than what it means for himself and knows it's a significant achievement for WA football and a great indication that the WAFL as a competition has maintained its strength and integrity in the face of a dramatically changing football landscape.

"The great joy for me on the weekend was actually confirming the strength of our competition and how much it means to West Australians. I get a great deal of joy out of that," Broadbridge told WAFL World on 91.3 SportFM.

"It's on top for me in terms of my coaching achievements, there's no doubt about that. In my assistant coaching days in the AFL I was fortunate enough to be involved in two grand finals (Collingwood in 2002, 2003) which were fantastic experiences, but unfortunately we lost both of those games. 

"Both of them hold different memories as a result, positive and negative. I coached the State 18s to a national championship in the late '90s which is a nice memory and achievement for me at the time, but this one given the significance of it to the WAFL competition and West Australian football history, there's absolutely no doubt that it sits right at the top. I'm very proud of it."

The WAFL team that beat the VFL by 63 points on Saturday might have been full of terrific individual talent, but without question the way they played and fully bought in as a group was what led to the emphatic result.

Applying pressure on Victoria was a significant focus from Broadbridge coming into the game and the heat they put the Big V under clearly paid dividends.

As a team, the WAFL laid 79 tackles for the day including 10 from Subiaco's Leigh Kitchin, seven each from Haiden Schloithe and Tim Kelly, six by Aaron Black and five from Kyal Horsley and Kody Manning.

Broadbridge has no doubt that played as significant a factor in the end result as anything else.

"We had a massive focus on our tackling pressure. One of the things that over time I've become very aware of is that when you travel, the mindset needs to somehow be reversed if you are going to get a win," he said.

"Normally the home team feels confident on their home turf and they get a crowd support behind them, and they get their backs up and that puts the opposition under pressure.

"Invariably that results in home victories and obviously with Western Australia never having won in Victoria in the past, to reverse that trend required a super effort.

"We focused heavily on tackling and I got 100 per cent buy in from every player. That no doubt put Victoria under enormous pressure and I think they succumbed to that."

Picking any squad for a one-off state game is never an easy task but it's difficult to argue that Broadbridge and his staff didn’t do an outstanding job with the 23 players they selected to make history in Melbourne.

Mitch Andrews battled hard in the ruck on state debut with inside midfielders Jye Bolton, Horsley, Kelly, Kitchin and Shane Nelson all terrific with support from Schloithe, Ryan Cook, Black and Corey Adamson.

The back-line held up strongly even after a shoulder injury to Kyle Anderson made up of Jordan Lockyer, Jonathon Marsh, Andrew Strijk, Luke Meadows, Manning and Kirk Ugle.

Then up forward, Saunders kicked six goals to win the Simpson Medal while Bradshaw chipped in with three majors, Schloithe three, Clancy Wheeler two and Jetta two.

It was a squad well-balanced positionally and in terms of experience and youth, and that was well suited to the conditions and size of the ground.

Broadbridge couldn’t have been happier with the way all of the squad delivered.

"When we picked the squad we wanted to make sure we had players who had invested in the outcome we were after," he said.

"Sometimes when you pick state teams, for whatever reason some players might feel like they need a break because they are a bit sore and they'd rather have a rest, while other players it might not mean that much to them.

"That was something we made a conscious effort of as coaches to get around the players and talk about what it meant to them and how committed they were. It wasn’t as direct as that, but subtly we wanted to know we picked guys who were 100 per cent committed to the cause.

"By the second training night we knew we had 100 per cent commitment from the players and that gave me a great deal of confidence that when we travelled over there the motivation wouldn’t have to come from the coaching panel because it was already there."

The conditions with a bit more of a fast track than perhaps was expected also is something that helped the WAFL using their running power. But Broadbridge always knew that winning the inside, contested ball was going to be key.

"We anticipated a much heavier ground. North Port can get very sloppy, it's got about a foot of turf above solid clay soil so when it rains the water just seeps up to the surface," Broadbridge said.

"Normally at this time of year in Melbourne that ground would be extremely soft, but they have been lucky with it being dry the last couple of weeks. When we got there and had a walk around the oval on Friday, we were pleasantly surprised with how firm it was and it was in good nick. 

"Even still it's a very small ground so it was going to be a battle of contested footy and the big bodies were a factor at selection no doubt. But over and above that, it was picking guys who are consistently the best players in the WAFL and rewarding them. That was the prime selection factor and then around the edges we made sure we had a good balance."