WESTERN AUSTRALIAN TEAM OF THE 20TH CENTURY

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Right Centre Wing - Stan 'Pops' Heal (West Perth & Melbourne)

Pacy, courageous and highly skilled, Stan Heal was one of Australia's finest wingmen of the 1940s.

In 1941 he accomplished the rare feat of playing in 2 premiership sides in different states in the same season.  Whilst temporarily stationed in Victoria, Heal lined up with Melbourne, and was on a wing as the Redlegs defeated Essendon in that year's VFL grand final.  A week later he was back home in Perth completing the 2nd half of an exceptional double as West Perth accounted for East Fremantle in the WANFL grand final.  This time Heal played as a rover, but it was as a wingman that he achieved his greatest notoriety.

The West Perth teams of the half decade or so following World War Two were among the finest in the club's history, and Heal was very much a lynch-pin, both as player and coach.  He was also a regular interstate representative winning a Simpson Medal against South Australia in 1949 and leading the sandgropers at the Brisbane carnival the following year.

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Centre - Mel Whinnen (West Perth)

Throughout his 18 season 371 game League career Mel Whinnen's name was synonymous with both fair play and brilliance, the dual attributes which inform the voting for most of the top awards in Australian football.  Given that, it is somewhat ironic that, although he came close several times (see footnote 1), he never once landed the supreme individual honour in Western Australian football, the Sandover Medal.  He more than made up for this, however, by winning West Perth's club champion award, the Breckler Medal, a record 9 times, emphasising his consistency.

Indeed, it was arguably the fact that Whinnen could invariably be relied upon to perform at or near his best that distinguished him from the comparatively large group of players who warrant the description 'good', and made him instead a bona fide champion.

Whinnen was fortunate enough to play in a premiership in his very first season with the Cardinals, coming on as 19th man for Don Marinko in a 32 point win over arch rivals East Perth.  His contributions to West Perth's victorious grand final teams of 1969 and 1971 were somewhat more auspicious, while in the 1975 grand final, nearing the end of his career, he was awarded the Simpson Medal for best afield in the Cardinals' 104 point annihilation of South Fremantle.

Always a sublimely elegant footballer, it was perhaps appropriate when, in 1976, Whinnen became one of a select band of players to be awarded an MBE.  He retired a year later after West Perth lost the 1977 preliminary final to East Fremantle.   It is doubtful if Leederville was ever home to a more prodigious talent.

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Peter Matera (South Fremantle & West Coast)

With pace, determination and precise use of the ball Peter Matera has been one of the most eye-catching performers in the modern game since making his debut for South Fremantle in 1987.  After a somewhat inconsistent debut season he began to blossom in 1988 when he was the only non-VFL player to be selected the Western Australian state of origin team which played Victoria.

In 1989 Matera joined West Coast, and it would be hard to contend with the observation that he has since become one of the half a dozen greatest players in the short history of a great club.  In a sport which, during the 1990s, was becoming increasingly the province of athletic speedsters Matera was admirably fitted to succeed; however, the fact that he combined these attributes with a wide range of the more traditional football skills - kicking, tackling, marking and so forth - transformed him from a merely good player into a champion.

Like all champions, in whatever sport, Peter Matera was often at his best in important games, most notable of which was the 1992 AFL grand final, in which he won the Norm Smith Medal after booting 5 goals in an exhilarating exhibition of attacking wing play.  Later in his career he held down a half back flank with equal efficacy.

Matera was much more than just a big game player, however.  His consistency is evidenced by his selection in no fewer than 5 AFL All Australian teams, the first 3 as a wingman, and the last 2 on a half back flank.  In some ways, his name - along with those of certain of his more illustrious team mates, such as Hart, Heady, Mainwaring, McIntosh and Worsfold - will always be synonymous with the first genuinely auspicious era in the history of the West Coast Eagles Football Club.   

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Footnotes

1.  Whinnen was runner up in the Sandover twice, to Barry Cable in 1964, and Dave Hollins in 1971.  In addition, he came 4th in 1972, and 5th in 1963 and 1966.  Back to Main Text