AFL premiership players Josh Kennedy and Harry Taylor combined to help Western Australian country club Northampton break a 19-year premiership drought on the weekend.
The West Coast champion and Geelong great both played their junior footy for the Rams and have since returned following their AFL careers to pull off a crazy win in an epic Grand Final against Railways.
When the final siren sounded, the Railways players and most onlookers thought they had won by a single point, but upon further inspection it turned out that a behind had gone unregistered and a score check deemed the game a draw.
After 10 minutes of extra-time, the Rams came out on top by three goals to claim the Great Northern Football League (GNFL) premiership in dramatic circumstances after Railways had seemingly lobbed narrowly.
The Rams turned it on late to claim their first flag since 2004, a game which Kennedy was overlooked for prior to his move to WAFL club East Fremantle.
Almost 20 years later and after almost 300 games with Carlton and the Eagles, ‘JK’ was back to pick up that elusive local flag.
He described how a point kicked by Taylor, which wasn’t logged on the scoreboard, ended up saving the day for the desperate Rams.
“It was epic, momentum swings from both teams,” he said on SEN WA Mornings.
“There was a bit of a breeze and there one was one scoring end. We ended up kicking the first five goals and Railways missed a few.
“They kept pegging back and pegging back and it was a really tight game the whole way through. It came down to the last few minutes, we were a couple of goals up, Harry kicked a point which didn’t register on the scoreboard.
“The siren went and Railways celebrated, we all thought we lost for a good three minutes. Then the officials were saying it was a draw, the score was checked and they hadn’t registered that point, so it was a draw.
“We had overtime. An unbelievable feeling going from losing a Grand Final to have 10 minutes to play.
“I’m so glad we won but just a real weird and crazy ending.”
Kennedy admitted he was “pretty average” and “couldn’t mark it” despite booting three early goals.
Two-time premiership player Taylor, apart from his point, didn’t have much scoreboard impact but did do his job, according to his Rams teammate.
Taylor’s game awareness in voicing his concerns about the unregistered point proved pivotal.
“He goes alright, he takes some good clunks,” Kennedy said of Taylor.
“He needs to work on his goal kicking, he’s pretty average with that, but he’s still so switched on.
“He knew the point hadn’t counted so as soon as the siren went he went straight to the umpires. He was onto it.
“When we all dropped and thought we lost, he was off telling the officials it didn’t register.”
Cue the raucous after events which included the Rams players and staff nicking the wheels and tyres off Taylor’s car as he rested at home, dreaming of his statue on the main street of Northampton.
Rams coach Grady Tomelty gave some insight into the aftermath of the remarkable season decider.
“We had a team meeting at about 4:30 on Sunday morning, I said, ‘boys, Harry has gone home, his car is still here, we’re going to take his wheels off but we need JK to give us the all clear,” Tomelty said on Sportsday’s SEN WA.
“After some brief discussions we all said, ‘yep, we’re doing it’, so we ripped his tyres off, put them sideways and dropped the car back down.
“The funny thing was that we saw some footage of him doing a parade up the main street on Sunday morning, showing his medal, hanging on his statue, and then he comes up the footy club to see that we’ve taken his wheels off.
“What a way to humble him. He actually turned up to Mad Monday wearing a jumpsuit, with soot all over his face, and a jack with a wheel on it. He found the funny side.”
Tomelty also tipped his hat to both Kennedy and Taylor who didn’t just show up for the glory, yet instilled their wisdom and experience into the playing group as returning hometown heroes.
“Harry has been back for two or three years and ‘JK’ has always shown his face around the club,” he said further.
“People are saying we just got these guys in to win a Grand Final, but what they’ve given back to the footy club and the community over their whole career.
“There was never any doubt that we’d welcome them back in straight away. It’s not every day you get people of their calibre that want to play footy for a small footy club.
“Everyone knows them personally, it’s not like they’re these big superstars coming in and just playing footy. It’s actual mates and family and friends.
“They’ve really embraced what we’ve built as a football club and then added to it so much more.”
AFL premiership pair play in “epic” and “crazy” local flag as Cats great loses car tyres - SEN
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