| Zane Parsons | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal information | |||
| Full name | Zane Parsons | ||
| Date of birth | 6 November 1976 | ||
| Original team(s) | Wagin Magpies (UGSFL) | ||
| Height | 186 cm (6 ft 1 in) | ||
| Weight | 78 kg (172 lb) (as of 1998) | ||
| Position(s) | Forward | ||
| Playing career | |||
| Years | Club | Games (Goals) | |
| 1995–2004 | South Fremantle | 74 (179) | |
| Representative team honours | |||
| Years | Team | Games (Goals) | |
| 1999–2002 | Western Australia | 2 (9) | |
| Career highlights | |||
| |||
Zane Parsons (born 6 November 1976) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the South Fremantle Football Club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). From Wagin, Parsons played most of his career in the forward line, and was South Fremantle's leading goalkicker in 1998, 2002, and 2003. In 2002, he kicked 65 goals to win the Bernie Naylor Medal as the competition's leading goalkicker, and additionally won South Fremantle's best and fairest award, the W. J. Hughes Medal. Parsons was hampered by injury throughout his career, playing only 74 games in ten seasons at the club, from which he kicked 179 goals. He also represented Western Australia twice in interstate matches.
From Wagin, a town in Western Australia's Wheatbelt region, Parsons played for the Wagin Magpies in the Upper Great Southern Football League (UGSFL), making his senior debut at the age of 16. Teams from the UGSFL fell into South Fremantle's recruiting zone, and Parsons played in several South Fremantle underage sides. He was also chosen in Western Australia's initial squad for the 1994 AFL Under 18 Championships, but did not make the final team. [1] Parsons made his senior WAFL debut against East Fremantle in round two of the 1995 season. [2] He went on to play two further matches, kicking three goals in round 17 and remaining in the team the following week. [3] During the 1996 season, he missed ten weeks following a shoulder reconstruction, and was also hampered by an ankle injury sustained in the pre-season, playing only five games in total. [4] The following season, he dislocated his knee during the pre-season, and played only three games. [1]
Parsons appeared more regularly during the 1998 season, especially in the first half of the year. Despite playing only 11 matches, Parsons led South Fremantle's goalkicking with 25 goals, and was named "player of the future" at the club's best and fairest awards. [5] Early in the season, he had been suspended for two weeks for striking Perth's Richard Pang. [6] For the 1999 season, South Fremantle served as the affiliate team for Fremantle in the Australian Football League (AFL). However, Parsons was able to maintain his place in the team, kicking 34 goals from 16 games, including two five-goal hauls. [3] [7] Good form early in the season led to his selection in the state team that played Tasmania in June 1999, at the Sir Richard Moore Sports Complex in Kalgoorlie. Western Australia won the match by 58 points, with Parsons kicking three goals and Rod Tregenza kicking ten goals. [8]
While training before the start of the 2000 season, Parsons had another player fall on his ankle, with the resulting surgery forcing him to miss the entire season. He completed the following pre-season, and was named in the club's first match, but nearly severed his thumb in a work accident, forcing him to miss several weeks. [9] Several other injuries, including a bout of influenza, meant Parsons did not play at senior level until round seventeen, playing three consecutive games which were his only for the season. [3] [10] He was, however, named in South Fremantle's initial 25-man squads for their preliminary final against Claremont and the grand final against East Perth, but did not play in either match, with South Fremantle losing the grand final. [11]
Playing 18 games, Parsons kicked 65 goals during the 2002 season, winning the Bernie Naylor Medal as the competition's leading goal-kicker. [12] In round eight, against Swan Districts in Wickepin, he kicked a career-best nine goals, in what was his 50th senior game. [13] He recorded several other large hauls throughout the season, including six goals in the previous round against Subiaco, [14] and consecutive eight-goal games against Claremont and Peel Thunder in rounds 12 and 13, respectively. [15] [16] Parsons also played in the June 2002 state game against Queensland, kicking six goals. [17] At the end of the season, he won South Fremantle's best and fairest award, the W. J. Hughes Medal, [18] and also placed equal twelfth in the Sandover Medal, tying with Claremont's Myles Quinn on 18 votes. [19]
Despite missing several games due to groin and thigh problems, [20] [21] Parsons again led the Bulldogs' goalkicking during the 2003 season, finishing with 47 goals from 14 games. This included hauls of seven, six, and five goals between rounds 19 and 21, and two other six-goal hauls. [3] He was, however, inaccurate at times, kicking four behinds in one game and seven in another. [22] [23] The 2004 season was Parsons' last in the WAFL. His only game for the season came in round two, against Swan Districts. [3] Parsons had suffered a knee injury during the pre-season and later missed almost three months to a calf injury, and then several weeks to a torn hamstring. [24] [25] [26] He retired at the end of the 2004 season, returning to Wagin to play country football. [27] [28]
Standing 186 centimetres (6 ft 1 in) tall, Parsons played at full forward or centre half-forward in underage matches, [1] but was considered a utility player early in his WAFL career. [4] Later, however, he played almost exclusively in the forward line, both on the half-forward flank and as a key-position player. [2] At times during the 2002 and 2003 seasons, he was considered South Fremantle's "spearhead". [29] [30] [31] During the 1998 season, when Parsons was aged 21, one writer in The West Australian described him as an "exceptionally good reader of the ball" and an "excellent long right-foot kick", but criticised his pace and his defensive game. [2] Another source noted his "ability to take a big mark and to kick team-lifting goals". [32] Parsons nominated several times for the AFL Draft, but was never selected. At the 1998 draft, he was considered an "outside chance" to be drafted, [33] while Port Adelaide expressed interest in selecting him at the 2002 draft, following his career-best season for South Fremantle. [34]
Daniel Bandy is a former Australian rules footballer. He played as a ruckman for Fremantle and the Western Bulldogs in the Australian Football League (AFL). He last played for West Australian Football League (WAFL) club Claremont in 2007.
Walter John Matera is a former Australian rules footballer. He played with the West Coast Eagles and Fitzroy in the AFL and for South Fremantle in the WAFL.
Warren Campbell is a former Australian rules footballer for North Melbourne in the Australian Football League (AFL), South Fremantle in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and St Mary's in the Northern Territory Football League (NTFL).
The 1997 Westar Rules Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the South Fremantle Football Club and the East Fremantle Football Club, on 21 September 1997 at Subiaco Oval, to determine the premier team of the Westar Rules for the 1997 season. South Fremantle won the game by 6 points, 13.7 (85) to 11.13 (79), with David Hynes of South Fremantle winning the Simpson Medal as best on ground.
The 1998 Westar Rules season was the second season of ‘Westar Rules’ and the 114th season of the various incarnations of senior football in Perth. The season opened on 29 March and concluded on 20 September with the 1998 Westar Rules Grand Final contested between East Fremantle and West Perth.
The 1998 Westar Rules Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between East Fremantle and West Perth on Sunday, 20 September 1998, at Subiaco Oval in Perth, Western Australia to determine the premier team of Westar Rules for the 1998 season. East Fremantle won convincingly by forty-three points, 20.10 (130) to 13.9 (87), taking out their twenty-ninth premiership but their last as of 2022.
The 1997 Westar Rules season was the 113th season of senior football in Perth, Western Australia. It featured a number of dramatic changes to a competition whose popularity had been dramatically reduced by the drain of players to the Eagles and Dockers of the AFL. The competition's name was changed from the prosaic ‘West Australian Football League’ to ‘Westar Rules’ in an attempt to update the local competition for a more sophisticated audience. However, this change became regarded as unsuccessful and was reversed as per recommendations of the “Fong Report” after four seasons. West Perth also changed their name to Joondalup to recognise their location in Perth's growing northwestern suburbs, but changed back after the ninth round.
The 1996 WAFL season was the 112th season of the West Australian Football League in its various incarnations.
The 1995 WAFL season was the 111th season of the West Australian Football League in its various incarnations. Already depleted in strength by the rise of the West Coast Eagles, the WAFL suffered a further blow to its popularity and standard when the AFL, to counter the Eagles’ dominance of the early 1990s with a champion defence and vast player depth, introduced the Fremantle Dockers as a second Western Australian club.
The 1999 Westar Rules season was the 115th season of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League and the third as “Westar Rules”. It is most notable for the first winless season in open-age Western Australian football since Midland Junction in their final 1917 season lost all twelve of their games, although South Fremantle in the under-19 1944 competition lost all nineteen of their games. Peel Thunder, who at the completion of the season had won only two of their first sixty Westar Rules matches, achieved the equal second-longest winless season in a major Australian Rules league behind SANFL club Sturt in 1995.[a] Although beforehand most critics thought the Thunder would improve on what they did in their first two seasons, late in the season none of the major Westar Rules writers gave them a chance to win even against second-last East Perth at Rushton Park.
The 2000 Westar Rules season was the fourth season of ‘Westar Rules’ and the 116th season of the various incarnations of senior football in Perth. It was the last season before the competition's name was changed back to the traditional ‘WAFL’ as it was clear the public had not been attracted by the change. Owing to the Sydney Olympics, Westar Rules shortened the 2000 season from twenty to eighteen matches per club, and retained this eighteen-match season in 2001 and 2002 before going back to the current twenty-match season.
The 2001 WAFL season was the 117th season of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League. Following the off-season “Fong Report” by WAFC President Neale Fong which was written as a response to the problems then faced on-and off-field by AFL and domestic football in Western Australia, the league reverted to calling itself the ‘WAFL’ because it was acknowledged ‘Westar Rules’ was painfully contrived and did not reflect the history or traditions of the local game.
The 1990 WASFL season was the 106th season of senior Australian rules football in Perth, Western Australia. It saw the league, already realising that the damage from the admission to the VFL of West Coast would be permanent rather than temporary as was hoped in 1986, rebrand itself as the Western Australia State Football League, but the move was unsuccessful and reversed after a single season. The refusal of WASFL clubs to permit an Eagles reserves team in the WASFL and the WAFC's refusal to accept one in the AFL's reserve grade competition led to further problems when Claremont said they would not play West Coast discards in the league team and produced a short-lived draft for such players, whilst at the same time Claremont rejected a proposed draft for the numerous young footballers who came from Perth's private schools but when not boarding lived in rural areas.
The 1991 WAFL season was the 107th season of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League. With the West Coast Eagles still pushing attendances down and club finances into the red, the league made further experiments. Following on from the VFL and SANFL it introduced a ‘final five’ to replace the final four in use since 1905, but this did not produce the hoped-for financial benefits and was abandoned after four seasons. A more enduring result of this chance was a ‘double-header’ system of playing finals, whereby the two senior semi-finals were played at Subiaco Oval on the same day, with the first game starting just before noon and the second at the traditional time for playing finals. As a consequence of the double-headers, reserves finals were played at Fremantle Oval and colts at Bassendean.
The 2006 WAFL season was the 122nd season of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League. Owing to low crowds making the city's traditional big-match venue, Subiaco Oval, uneconomic due to high overheads, the WAFL followed the AFL since 1991 by scheduling finals at the home ground of the club higher on the ladder.
The 2003 WAFL season was the 119th season of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League. For this season the WAFL reverted briefly to playing its semi-finals as a “double-header”, a policy abandoned for good at the end of the 2005 season, and also reverted to a twenty-game home-and-away season with three byes which has continued to this day.
The 1992 WAFL season was the 108th season of senior football in Perth, Western Australia. It is most notable for the end of the Claremont dynasty of the previous five seasons, which was pre-season an expected result of losing all but nine of the premiership side to the AFL draft or in two cases retirement. The Tigers, whose guernsey reverted from the gold sash to the CFC monogram, which they wore during their miraculous premiership success in 1964, fell from first with only two losses to avoiding the wooden spoon only by percentage, in the process using fifty-two players in the league team. East Fremantle won their first premiership for seven years after a very disappointing 1991, whilst East Perth, who had been stragglers for the preceding half-decade, made a remarkable rush from fifth position to narrowly miss their first Grand Final since winning the 1978 premiership.
The 2005 WAFL season was the 121st season of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League. It saw reigning premiers Subiaco's third consecutive minor premiership, despite the loss of key forward Brad Smith to the West Coast Eagles and knee surgery. Thirty-year-old reserves spearhead Lachlan Oakley proved a perfect replacement and scored eighty goals in his only full season before moving to Victoria and playing with Parkdale Vultures in the VAFA. The Lions were widely tipped to finish the season undefeated with their perceived depth, discipline and motivation, but after suffering only two defeats in the home-and-away season, the Lions collapsed severely in the finals for South Fremantle to claim their first premiership since 1997. The premiership was a wonderful finalé for Toby McGrath, who retired for an army career after the 2004 season, but returned to WA in February and rejoined the Bulldogs to win both the Sandover and Simpson Medals.
The 2004 WAFL season was the 120th season of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League.
The 1993 WAFL season was the 109th of the various incarnations of the West Australian Football League. It saw an extraordinarily even competition amongst all the teams except Perth, with only three and a half games separating first and seventh and the smallest dispersion of winning percentages in the WAFL since 1921. West Perth's 13 wins and a percentage marginally under 100 is the fewest wins and lowest percentage to take top position in a major Australian Rules league: indeed no team had headed the ladder with a percentage nearly so low at any stage of a season except Hawthorn during May of 1969 and Perth during June and July 1963.