M & J Chickens Player of Round 7Wednesday, May 23, 2018 - 9:15 AM - by Chris Pike

SUBIACO, South Fremantle and Perth also had impressive Round 7 WAFL victories with some standout performers, but you couldn't go past West Perth gun Andrew Strijk for the M & J Chickens Player of the Round following his career-best outing for the Falcons.

The WAFL resumed on Saturday following the State game victory over South Australia and it saw big wins in Round 7 for Subiaco against Peel Thunder by 92 points, South Fremantle over East Perth by 68 points and West Perth against East Fremantle by 88 points.

The thriller of the round took place at Claremont Oval with Perth beating Claremont by a point and across all four games there were plenty of tremendous individual performers.

Subiaco captain Kyal Horsley racked up 41 possessions while his teammate Ben Newton had 26 disposals and kicked five goals. 

Claremont's Sandover Medal pair Kane Mitchell and Jye Bolton both had standout performances too despite the Tigers' loss to Perth while Demons skipper Clint Jones was tremendous also including kicking the game-winning behind to close the game.

Then in West Perth's 88-point win against East Fremantle, Strijk wasn’t even the lone standout player for the Falcons with captain Aaron Black not far behind with 37 possessions and two goals while Shane Nelson also had 39 disposals.

But the Round 7 M & J Chickens Player of the Round just couldn’t be anyone but Andrew Strijk who was playing his 215th game for the Falcons.
 

Strijk has been an outstanding player for West Perth right throughout those 215 matches since making his debut in 2006. 

Along the way he played in the 2013 premiership, won a fairest and best award in 2013 also and has represented Western Australia on seven occasions on top of also playing 13 AFL matches with the West Coast Eagles.

Not only that, but Strijk has that rare ability to be a match-winner while playing at either end of the ground. 

He became largely a half-forward when with the Eagles and with his powerful right-foot and strong ball winning ability, has always been effective in the front half whether kicking on goal himself or setting up his teammates. 

But he's played more of his football off half-back where his trademark dash and long-kicking have long been a feature of the West Perth game over the past decade.

He did start the 2018 season in tremendous form off half-back too but a knee injury to Kody Manning has seen him move forward and Blake Wilhelm slot nicely into his role off half-back, and it has been working a treat.

Strijk threatened the type of day he had on Saturday back in Round 5 against Perth at Lathlain Park but his kicking boot wasn’t quite on. He finished that afternoon with 24 possessions, 15 marks and 3.4.

He backed it up with a good performance against Subiaco with 20 disposals, nine marks and a goal, and then had a strong showing in the WAFL State game victory over the SANFL at Adelaide Oval with three goals to go with 15 possessions and five marks.

So the 30-year-old was in some ominous form heading into Saturday's clash with East Fremantle and he delivered a simply remarkable performance.

Strijk had previously kicked five goals once before last year against Claremont but never more than that with hauls of four on another seven occasions.

That sure changed on Saturday with him kicking eight goals made up of one in the first quarter, three in the second and then another four in the fourth.

To go with that, he also had 23 possessions and 10 marks in an unstoppable display which he obviously was happy about, but it certainly made it more memorable to do as part of a thumping victory at the same time.

"It was a bloody good day. It was good to get a win, we were sitting at 3-3 so it's good to have a winning record now and it was a great day for the club," Strijk said.

"It's pretty unusual and I don’t kick too many big bags of goals. But it was a pretty good day and it was good fun. I was just fortunate enough to be on the end of the chain and got to see a few. 

"I think as a group we kicked 24 goals so that was because of a four-quarter team effort. We aren’t really too concerned with who kicked the goals but I'm obviously happy I kicked that many. But really it was good that we had such a good team effort and were able to put that much of a score on the board.

"I don’t think I've kicked a bag like that before. Maybe when I was a real young kid and I was ball hogging a little bit I might have, but definitely not at this sort of level. The most I've ever kicked was five and that's it. It was just one of those days where things fell my way an unexpected amount. I was pretty fortunate."

M & J Chickens Players of the Round
Round 1 – Rhys Palmer (Swan Districts)
Round 2 – Fraser McInnes (East Perth)
Round 3 – Cody Leggett (Perth)
Round 4 – Shane Nelson (West Perth)
Round 5 – Patrick McGinnity (East Perth)
Round 6 – Marlion Pickett (South Fremantle)
Round 7 – Andrew Strijk (West Perth)