Prescott’s Major Milestone

By Ken Casellas

Ash Prescott holds a special place in the history of the Claremont Football Club as the coach with the greatest number of victories for the Tigers in WAFL league matches, and he will celebrate a wonderful milestone at Revo Fitness Stadium on Saturday when his 2026 side clashes with East Perth.

This will be Prescott’s 200TH match as Claremont’s senior coach, with the first 199 games resulting in 140 wins, one draw and 58 losses.

Not one of the club’s previous 30 league coaches won more matches, with Graham Moss in second place with 135 wins, two draws and 86 defeats in his 223 contests in which he was in charge. Only three other club coaches — Gerard Neesham, George Moloney and Jim Conway — were in charge for more than one hundred matches.

Neesham’s record was 171 matches for 112 wins, three draws and 57 losses; Moloney’s 135 matches resulted in 44 wins, one draw and 90 defeats; and Conway was in control for 53 wins, one draw and 57 losses from 111 matches.

For Saturday’s re-enactment match Claremont’s players will don the heritage style jumpers that were used in the club’s inaugural season in 1926 when the club, originally known as Claremont-Cottesloe, made its first WAFL appearance against East Perth at the Claremont Showgrounds on April 24, 1926.

Three hearty cheers from the East Perth men greeted the home side’s players as they ran on to the ground, but after that the visitors showed little mercy on their inexperienced rivals, with the Royals strolling to a 71-point victory, 16.21 to 6.10.

Now, 100 years later, Claremont and East Perth will be meeting for the 295TH time, with East Perth showing the way with 159 wins to Claremont’s 133 victories, along with two drawn contests. Die-hard Tigers supporters will be happy on Saturday to inform East Perth fans that Claremont have scored 3762 goals against their club, which has a tally of 3731 goals against the Tigers.

The 53-year-old Prescott would have reached his double century in the match against Perth at Lathlain Park last Saturday week if he had not missed the round 12 game against East Perth at Claremont Oval on June 16, 2007, when his first son, Xavier, was born. Filling in as league coach on that day was Claremont stalwart Brad Wira, and the Tigers were successful, 14.12 to a remarkably accurate East Perth’s 12.2.

Prescott played in 128 AFL matches — 90 for Richmond and 38 for Fremantle — and has worked as an assistant coach with Essendon, the Gold Coast Suns and the Dockers. He was the coach of the Claremont colts side on 2002 and 2003, and in the second of those years he played in 18 league matches for the Tigers and was chosen in the WAFL Team of the Year and finished equal third with Mark Seaby behind the winner, Shane Beros, and Kris Miller in the Sandover Medal.

He made quite an extraordinary start to his career as a senior coach in the round one WAFL contest against Peel Thunder at Rushton Park on March 20, 2004, with the official score showing Claremont defeating Peel, 17.15 to 0.0, a margin of 117 points.

But later WAFL officials discovered that Peel had used an unregistered player (Peter Bird), and therefore, under WAFL rules, had their score deleted.