It was a day when for once the roar of the crowd at Subiaco didn’t sway the umpire as veteran whistle man Hayden Kennedy penalised Eagles defender Ashley McIntosh for dragging the ball underneath him as he was tackled by Gavin Mitchell.

With under a minute left on the clock the home crowd erupted as Mitchell, who had otherwise experienced a quiet day, kicked truly when it mattered.

It was a memorable day in many respects, especially for Saints Peter 'Spida' Everitt and Daniel Healy who both turned 24 that day and each scored six goals.

The laconic Healy joked this week:

“It’s a fair chance I’d remember it. It’s the only game when I got a kick. It’s a bizarre scenario when you think that we were twins!

Co-captains Stewart Loewe and Nathan Burke, plus Andrew Thompson and Barry Hall all had to pull out of the team with injuries and then Darryl Wakelin left the field with concussion in the second term.

Daniel Healy recalls: “The irony for me of Loewey not playing – and he’s a superstar, it forced Harves to kick to somebody else. You wouldn’t make a pathetic lead next to this bloke who marked everything.”

Healy has a fascinating blend of memories of that day of days.

“The things I remember are a bit weird. It was the first time I actually felt free on the footy field (at AFL level).

"In a lot of my 30-odd games I spent time on the bench which wasn’t unusual in those days. So any time I was out there I was a bit on edge. Every time the runner came out you would see him and think ‘is he going to take me off?’

"I remember him coming out and I’m thinking is he going to take me off. There was this freedom that I felt I was   playing the sort of football I should be able to play.”

There were some funny sides as well.

“My old man was on a tractor back home in Adelaide and he heard at half-time that Healey had kicked three. He thought they had meant to say Heatley (full forward Jason Heatley). He thought he had mis-heard.

“In the after-match the supporters were going off and I was the toast of the town, they got me up and introduced me and said that I’d kicked six goals. Cripper (Jason Cripps) heard someone in the crowd say ‘he’ll never do that again!’. Cripper took great delight in running over to tell me that. Sadly it proved to be true!”

A long time after that day there was a sequel.

“Years later I was doing a leadership course and Hayden Kennedy was there. People were talking about the significant moments in their lives and somehow Hayden Kennedy got around to talking about this game he umpired in Perth when he gave a free to Gavin Mitchell in the last minute. I nearly leaned across the table and belted him.”

“I said to him that I kicked six goals that day and it could have been the only time I got a Brownlow vote and you didn’t give it to me.”

“I remember when we got home to the airport, my sponsorship group “Saints at Moorabbin” Scottie Goodings, Bruce Eva and Francis Leech were there at the airport to greet us at 4am. The next week I kicked 1.4 against Brisbane, and couldn’t finish it off. I’d like to be remembered for more than one game, but that’s the way it is.”

In that era it was thought that the hotter it was, the better chance the Eagles had of running the Victorian sides off their legs in WA. But in this particular Sunday it didn’t go to script after the Eagles looked likely to canter home after dominating the third term and leading by 27 points early in the last term.  

After the game Saint coach Stan Alves said it was more than football skills which got his boys to the line in the last minute of play. He called it character. And nobody was arguing with that.

Players of the character of Everitt, Healy, Austinn Jones and Robert Harvey applied the blowtorch to the Eagles who, amazingly, wilted under the strain.

The legend Polly Farmer described Everitt as one of the most dangerous players in the game because not only did he work well in the ruck, but was a legitimate match-winning forward.

In Loewe’s absence, it was critical for Everitt to become a force, especially when Darryl Wakelin was injured early, forcing David Sierakowski to take up a defensive post.

It was an epic, deserved victory by the Saints.

ST KILDA  3.2  8.8  10.13  18.13 (121)
WEST COAST  3.4  6.4  14.7  18.11 (119)

BEST
Everitt, Healy, Harvey, Winmar, Jones, Cripps