Farewell to Four Stalwarts

It will be a sad and emotional time at Leederville Oval on Saturday afternoon when four wonderful players will make their final appearance for Claremont in the league match against East Perth.

Trinity Handley, Matt Orzel, Luke Blackwell and Andrew Foster have decided to draw the curtain on outstanding careers.

Tigers supporters will gather to rejoice and celebrate the marvellous deeds of this quartet over the past decade. Between them, they have notched a total of 497 league appearances for Claremont, combining to take 1708 marks, have 5890 kicks and fire out 3830 handpasses.

We salute these four young men, each an ornament to the game and a true champion in his own right. They will be missed and we thank them for their dedication, their skill and the great joy they have given us.

Their absence will leave a gaping hole in the side in 2015. But retirements are inevitable and the Tigers have a fine record of rebuilding quickly and strongly. The club is looking forward with great anticipation the return of Beau Maister (after a stint with St Kilda) and Ian Richardson (after a year overseas).

The rigours of competing year after year at a high level takes its toll and this wear and tear and the inevitable injuries were the main reasons for the retirements of the Tigers quartet.

The 30-year-old Handley will bow out with a record of 184 league appearances, leaving him in 11th place in the all-time list of Claremont footballers. Extremely professional in all aspects of football, Handley has been an extraordinarily versatile player who has shone as a key defender and key forward. He booted four goals in his only interstate match for Western Australia, against South Australia in Glenelg in 2012.

Along with Blackwell and Foster, Handley is a dual league premiership player (2011 and 2012). Born in New South Wales, Handley came to WA with his family as a young boy and his first involvement with Claremont was as a member of the club’s under-9 side.

He graduated to Claremont’s under-13 development squad before going on to play in colts ranks for three seasons. And then in his first season in the reserves he was a member of Claremont’s losing grand final side. He also had the disappointment of playing in losing league grand final sides in 2004, 2005 and 2007.

Handley, strong, tall and athletic, took a year off to work and play country football with Port Fairy in Victoria in 2010 before returning to Claremont. A born leader with a quiet disposition, he would have played many more matches had it not been for a series of debilitating injuries over the years, including two leg fractures, a broken hand, a broken toe, a fractured cheekbone, groin and thigh strains and various stress fractures.

These failed to dampen his spirit or enthusiasm and in recent years he has developed into a wonderful mentor for younger teammates.

Orzel (29), a powerfully-built, robust and absolutely fearless midfielder, was a member of North Albany’s colts premiership team in 2001 before representing the Tigers in colts ranks in 2002 and 2003. He played in the losing grand final against South Fremantle in 2003 and finished second in the club’s fairest-and-best award.

He and Handley appeared in their first league match in the round-one fixture against Peel Thunder at Rushton Park in 2004 and he was still a teenager when he played in the losing grand final side against Subiaco that year.

Orzel played in 13 league matches in 2004 and ten the following year before making only five senior appearances in 2006 when he polled 170 votes to be runner-up to Tim Greaney  (171 votes) in the club’s fairest-and-best award. He topped the poll with 31 votes but was ineligible to win the Prendergast Medal for the fairest-and-best player in the competition. The award went to Greaney with 28 votes. Orzel had been suspended for one week for rough play against an East Perth opponent during the season.

Then he became a permanent member of the league side for the next four seasons before managing seven games in 2010 when the club boasted an outstanding crop of talented midfielders. This prompted him to make a move and he played in 38 league matches for Peel in 2012 and 2013 before returning to Tigerland this year, during which he has been a consistent performer in league ranks.

Advancing years and the responsibility of a young family of three girls, plus the pressure of work as a plumber, were his reasons for stepping into a well-deserved retirement.

The left-footed Orzel has always taken a wholehearted approach to the game. He is a tough, uncompromising, no-nonsense old-fashioned footballer with a strong work rate. His sacrificial acts and pressure skills have made him a valuable and much-loved member of Claremont sides.

He has worn the No. 6 jumper with great pride and distinction. Saturday’s match will mark his 117th league appearance for the Tigers and no other number at Claremont boasts so many 100-game players, the others being Edgar Sanders, Jim Reid, Kevin Clune, John Lewis, Jeremy Guard and Brad Wira.

The 27-year-old Blackwell has been one of the greatest recruits in the history of the Claremont Football Club. He is the elder son of 1981 Claremont premiership player Wayne Blackwell, who made 112 league appearances for the Tigers before playing in 110 matches for Carlton.

Luke Blackwell was recruited by Claremont at 22 at the start of the 2009 season after he had been delisted by Carlton where he represented the club in 23 AFL fixtures in 2006 and 2007 before a serious injury (torn quadriceps muscle in his right leg) kept him out of action for much of the 2008 season.

He has been a spectacular success at Claremont and will bow out a champion after 114 league matches. He is modest, unassuming, self-deprecating and a harsh self-critic whose professionalism and exquisite skills have earned him the reputation as one of the finest players in the 89-year history of Claremont.

Blackwell is the epitome of a team player par excellence who shuns the limelight and just gets on with the job with the minimum of fuss or fanfare. Among his chief assets are his ability to think quickly under pressure, his decision making and his proficiency with hand and foot on both sides of the body. His deft pin-point passing has made him the standout performer at Claremont over the past six years.

A member of the side which lost the 2010 grand final by one point to Swan Districts, he was a star in Claremont premiership triumphs in 2011 and 2012. He was the premiership captain in 2011 when he had 28 disposals and played a major role in the 56-point victory over Subiaco. He had 37 disposals and was a clear winner of the Simpson Medal as WA’s best player in the first of his four interstate matches --- when the State side lost by 55 points to the VFL at Leederville Oval in May 2010.

He polled 34 votes and finished third to Perth’s Ross Young in the 2009 Sandover Medal and a year later he polled 36 votes and was second to Andrew Krakouer of Swan Districts before he went one better in 2011 when he received 42 votes and won the medal by nine votes from Subiaco’s Kyal Horsley. Blackwell also won Claremont’s fairest-and-best award, the E. B. Cook Medal, in each of those three years.      

Blackwell has shown enormous character and resolve to make light of injuries for much of his magnificent career and his battered and bruised body has sent him a timely signal that the time is ripe to hang up the boots. He plans to settle in Melbourne where he will marry his wonderfully supportive girlfriend Kimberley Alexander late next year. He will maintain strong links with Claremont as a talent scout for the club.

He received a three-week suspension in July 2012, but still managed to poll 33 votes and finish eighth in the Sandover Medal. A serious ankle injury (against East Perth at Leederville Oval early in 2013) forced him on the sidelines for 11 weeks. An abdominal injury forced him to miss one match this year when he has shown remarkable courage to continue playing under physical duress.

Foster, who celebrates his 29th birthday on Sunday, played 49 league matches for East Fremantle and was on the senior list of the Fremantle Dockers for three years before joining the Tigers at the start of the 2010 season. His final match for the Tigers will be his 86th for his adopted club.

A hard-running, creative midfielder and a highly-skilled half-forward flanker, Foster managed just nine AFL appearances with the Dockers because of a damaged right shoulder which required surgery and a debilitating back injury, with a prolapsed disc.

He has thoroughly enjoyed his five years at Claremont and now he has plans to continue his involvement in football in a coaching capacity.

Claremont’s match against East Perth on Saturday will be the club’s final league appearance for 2014 under first-year coach Michael Broadbridge. The Tigers lost eight of their first 11 matches before striking top form and winning seven of their next eight games. The only defeat in that period (after losing by 16 points to East Perth in round 16 on July 12) was by two points to Peel in Mandurah.

The Tigers have beaten every club expect East Perth this season and club supporters are looking forward to a wholehearted performance against the runaway league leaders who have lost only three of their 19 qualifying-round matches.

Supporters will have a perfect opportunity to farewell the four retiring stars at the presentation of trophies in the members’ bar at the Showgrounds at 6.30 on Saturday night.