Horsley primed for grand final after toughest year of careerFriday, September 25, 2015 - 4:07 PM - by Chris Pike

KYAL Horsley's return to Subiaco last year went just about perfectly with him ending up premiership captain but he admits that 2015 has been his toughest season with injury troubles, but he is confident that's all behind him now entering Sunday's WAFL grand final against West Perth.

Horsley broke into the Subiaco team that was in the middle of a premiership hat-trick to play in the flag of 2008, the losing grand final of 2009 and then he had the best season of his career up to that point in 2011 that led to his drafting by the Gold Coast Suns.

He played 14 matches in two years with the Suns and showed he was more than up to AFL standard, but the tough and prolific ball-winning left-footer found himself delisted at the end of 2013 and he returned to Subiaco.

The result was a standout personal season ending up with him becoming a premiership captain in his second flag with the Lions while also going close in the Sandover Medal and claiming Subiaco's fairest and best award for a second time.

While Subiaco has had a dominant 2015 season now losing just three times to end up four games clear on top of the ladder, and then advance straight to the grand final with a 55-point second semi-final win, it hasn’t been the year Horsley was hoping for.

The 28-year-old has been restricted to 13 games because of injury after missing almost three months between Rounds 3 and 13, but he has gradually built up his form in the second half of the season and is now raring to go for the grand final on Sunday at Domain Stadium against West Perth.

"It's been my toughest year mentally. You always talk to blokes who get injured who tell you how lonely rehab is, and it is really tough. Obviously the back end of the season I've been able to string some games together and train with the group, which is the toughest thing you miss," Horsley said.

"I've also been able to play a bit more on the outside and have some time to find my feet because we have such a good engine room. I've just been able to go about my business and I think I'm now set to keep rolling on and play a good game, but you never know until you're out there."

Helping ease the pressure on Horsley in 2015 has been the performances in the midfield of Chris Phelan, Sam Menegola, Brett Robinson, Leigh Kitchin and Scott Hancock after he was Subiaco's dominant on-baller in 2014.

"We have a big say in our structures, and what we do working closely with our midfield coach and when you have that buy in, and input into it you have everyone playing their role and doing the team things," he said.

"There's no individuals even though Sammy is an absolute superstar and wins a lot of possessions, and Phelan is a great runner and ball user but mainly it's about serving your role within that group. At the end of the day, when it comes to grand finals it's not about individual performances, it's about the collective to get the result and that's what we focus on."

The only question mark over Subiaco this season has surrounded the ruck department following the retirement of Andrew McDougall and knee injury to Frank Stockley.

David Madut did well for most of the season before going out of the team and then getting injured, but the makeshift pair of Clancy Wheeler and Lachlan Delahunty have more than stepped up in the role, and Horsley is backing them in to do so again in the grand final.

"Training with them they are both super competitive in everything they do, so you knew if they went into the ruck they would give it everything," Horsley said.

"They might not have the height or experience in there, but they always compete and that's one thing you always see from them is that at every centre bounce and stoppage they are fighting as hard as they possibly can.

"Then their natural abilities and talents around the ground take them to lots of contests, and win them a lot of footy. I'm a little surprised in the sense of how well they've done, but I always knew they'd give a contest and I didn’t quite think they would have the impact they have had around the stoppages even though I knew what they'd give around the ground."

The last three grand finals that Horsley has played in for Subiaco in 2009, 2011 and 2014 saw them have to win a preliminary final to get there, and it proved a winning formula last year against East Perth.

However, this time Subiaco had the break in the first week of the finals, beat West Perth to make the grand final and had the rest preliminary final weekend as the Falcons beat the Royals.

Horsley doesn’t expect that to have an impact on the result either way, but he certainly does feel fresh after a tough season.

"It's been interesting having the week off and probably the nerves started watching East Perth and West Perth last week, and that's when the enormity of what you're playing for started to build. It's probably mid-week that it subsides a bit but now coming into the weekend it's definitely building up again, and there's a lot of nerves but a lot of good energy which you always need," he said.

"Obviously we might lack that bit of match hardness with the week off, but we've trained really hard and sharply so we've prepared as well as we possibly can without playing a game. Jarrad, the coaches and our fitness staff have got it perfect and I feel great.

"Hopefully that shows out there and we put in a good performance, but missing a week of footy is something everyone reacts differently to and hopefully it's a positive for us and works in our favour."

Going back to last year, Horsley had a dominant season in the midfield for Subiaco in his first season back in the AFL and first as captain, but he had a hiccup in the second semi-final loss to East Perth when he suffered a tear to his quadriceps muscle.

Subiaco's medical team told him he might be able to play one more game, but by doing so the tear would get worse and then he'd be done for some time.

So the decision was made for him to miss the preliminary final, and Subiaco managed to survive that against a horribly inaccurate East Fremantle, and it turned out perfectly with him leading the Lions to the grand final win.

"I could have played the prelim but if I played I had a really small tear in my quad, and it would have got bigger and I would have been no chance in the grand final," he said.

"It turned out that Boland and Hampson missed that game as well and they were really close to playing, but in the end the three of us missed and it was a very nervous time in that prelim. I had one game left in me for the year so we luckily enough we got to the grand final, and we were able to win."

While Subiaco had a terrific second semi-final win over West Perth by 55 points with a particularly dominant display at contested possessions and with clearances, Horsley expects the Falcons to bounce back hard in that area in the grand final on Sunday.

"We watched the vision back and we set ourselves for that game, and played really strongly inside but we thought West Perth was a little bit off," Horsley said.

"We watched them against East Perth and their intensity around the contest went up extremely compared to the week before.

"We are expecting them to be ferocious inside and they've probably been the best inside team in the competition all year, so we expect them to bounce back.

"We'll have to be at our very best to match them and if that's the case and we give our forwards the first feed, it will go a long way to winning the game."