HORSE RACING/FOOTBALL

By LIAM DURKIN

 

THE marshmallows were saved for the confectionary stand this time.

AFL legend Kevin Sheedy was guest of honour at this year’s Moe Cup.

Fans were eager to snap a photo with Essendon’s coach of the century, who generously gave his time mingling with attendees.

Sheedy has a number of local connections through his interest in horse racing, mainly through the Gelagotis stable, and is familiar with Moe Racing Club, where his son has sent horses previously.

The Sheedy-Moe Racing Club connection also takes in generations.

Moe’s Peter Sommerville played in Essendon’s 1993 premiership. His dad John Sommerville (another premiership Bomber) is the brother of Geoff Sommerville, who is the Sommerville of Moe building firm Law Sommerville Industries, the Law of which is Moe Racing Club Life Member and current vice chairman Brad Law.

Topping it off, Moe Racing Club Treasurer Pauline Turra, who was instrumental in landing Sheedy, comes from a family of diehard Essendon supporters.

“I’ve enjoyed every time I’ve come here, people always make you feel welcome,” Sheedy said.

“They’ve done a great job on cup day, having the courage to put it on a Sunday, I think it’s been a very smart move.”

Sheedy’s father hails from East Gippsland, while his old coaching adversary Denis Pagan has been another to enter the racing industry post his AFL days, and has been spotted in the mounting yard a few times at Moe Racing Club in recent years.

Regarded as the AFL’s greatest innovator, and the only person to clock 1000 games as a player/coach at the highest level (taking in premiership, preseason and state games for Richmond, Essendon and GWS), Sheedy rubbed shoulders with a host of locals at the highest level.

He coached Thorpdale’s Jason Winderlich (129 games for Essendon) and, somewhat ironically, Traralgon’s Jay Neagle, who holds the distinction of making his debut in Sheedy’s last game as Essendon coach in 2007.

Sheedy also travelled with Traralgon’s Kelvin Templeton on Harry Beitzel’s Galah’s tour to Ireland in the 1970s – a forerunner to what became International Rules.

“Wonderful player Kelvin, this area, Latrobe Valley, from West Gippsland right through to Bairnsdale, if you were picking one of the greatest teams ever it’d be one of the best sportsman’s night you’d ever have,” Sheedy said.

Templeton has released a novel, and will be back home next week for the local release. Beitzel, a fellow AFL Hall of Famer, did time at the old Morwell River Prison Farm after getting unintentionally tangled up in the financials of a lottery organisation he was working for.

Another one of Sheedy’s premiership players, Steve Carey (1985), went on to coach Warragul.

The Gulls will be coached by Gary Ayres next season, who was an assistant under Sheedy at Essendon.

“He’s a very good coach, his coaching at Port Melbourne was impeccable. Whoever is going to be playing against a Gary Ayres team is going to have to be super-competitive to win,” Sheedy warned.

Closer to home, Sheedy has previously been No 1 ticket holder for Moe Football-Netball Club, where he has taken training for senior and junior teams.

Known for his outside-the-box thinking, he once instructed Moe players to kick the ball along the ground for an entire drill, before changing back to the conventional.

He did this purely to make a point of how much easier it is to move the ball when it stays off the deck.

“If you’ve got a lot of knowledge out of your life over 78 years, share it before you’re not here,” he told the Express.

While he has often labelled James Hird as Essendon’s greatest ever player, he has said he was prepared to step aside as Bombers coach after close to 30 years on the presumption Neale Daniher would be his successor.

Daniher’s son Ben has played for Moe the last four years, and only recently made the decision his knees could not go around again.

Sheedy famously made his Essendon team leave the 1999 Grand Final at three quarter time, the start of what was a virtually undefeated 2000 season.

The parallels could perhaps not be more poignant for the current Moe team.

As for long-suffering Bomber fans of the current generation, Sheedy had this to say when asked ‘can you give any hope to Essendon supporters next year?’

“Essendon will be a very good team within three years,” he declared.

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