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EAST COAST EAGLES (Baulkham Hills)
Affiliated: SFL 1993-1998; SAFL 1999-present
Club Address: P.O. Box 6610, BHBC, Baulkham Hills 2153, New South Wales
Home Ground: Roger Sheeran Oval, Macquarie University
Formed: 1976 as Baulkham Hills; became known as East Coast Eagles in 1999
Colours: Navy blue, orange and gold
Emblem: Eagles
Premierships: S(A)FL - nil; SFA - 1991 (1 total)
Phelan Medallists: Graham Jones 1995; Jarrod Crosby 1998 (2 total)
Snow Medallists: Doug Scholtz 1990 (1 total)
S(A)FL Top Goalkickers: Gus Seebeck (65) 2006 (1 total)
Highest Score: 62.37 (409) vs. St Ives at Charles McLaughlin Reserve, Baulkham Hills in 1991
In 1993 the Baulkham Hills Football Club, which two years earlier had won its first and only Sydney Football Association premiership, was admitted to the elite football competition in Sydney, the Sydney Football League.
Sam Wood marks strongly for the Eagles during a clash with North Shore at Gore Hill Oval.
The side finished seventh out of nine teams in its debut season and, with the exception of 1995, when it reached the preliminary final, has tended to struggle. At the end of the 1999 season the club secured a partnership arrangement with AFL side West Coast which proved to be a prototype for numerous other such liaisons between clubs at AFL and state league levels. Playing as the East Coast Eagles, the side finished in sixth place (out of eight clubs, with the Sydney Swans reserves also participating but not being awarded premiership points) in the 2000 season, and the following year saw the club officially being split in two. The junior arm of the club - which remains one of the strongest and most popular in New South Wales - retained both the Baulkham Hills name and the old Falcons logo, while the senior arm carried on under the East Coast Eagles banner.
The East Coast Eagles' playing uniform is identical to that used by West Coast in away matches, and the club continues to benefit tangibly from the partnership.
In 2003 the Eagles enjoyed a promising season, finishing sixth, a result on which they improved by one place in both 2004 and 2005. In 2006 they enjoyed arguably their best - and, ultimately, most distressing - ever season as they won all 16 home and away matches and then comfortably defeated Western Suburbs to qualify for their first ever grand final. Opposing them in the premiership decider was Pennant Hills, which had won only 10 home and away matches, but had shown ominously strong form in both its finals matches. The grand final was hard fought and closely contested, but ultimately there could be no doubt that Pennant Hills was the better side on the day, as the final scores of 5.20 (50) to 7.6 (48) clearly show. It was not the first time that the best team in a competition has squandered everything on grand final day, and it certainly will not be the last, but no one in the Eagles camp would have drawn any consolation whatsoever from that. Moreover, the fact that Eagles player Kristian Pearson was awarded the Rod Podbury Medal for best afield only served to rub proverbial salt into a wound that will almost certainly continue to fester until such time as the elusive Holy Grail of a premiership is claimed.
In 2007, the Eagles suffered a substantial post-grand final hangover when they plummeted to 5th place with a 10-8 record. A year later they fought their way through to the grand final from fourth place, only to under-perform quite dramatically when it mattered most, and slump to an embarrassing 104 point loss against Pennant Hills.
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