When football’s ‘experts’ were picking over the carcass of the West Coast  Eagles after the 2005 grand final defeat, they threw up a myriad of perceived weaknesses within the team structure.

No forwards, no quality key position players and no-one capable of playing on the dangerous small forwards. Sure, David Wirrpanda  was an all-Australian back pocket selection,  but he was more of a rebounding option than a defensive stopper.

In the first half of 2006, the problem of a tight, negating defender to play on zippy forwards appeared to be resolved through the evolution of Mark Nicoski. But midway through the year, Nicoski felt a sharp pain in the ankle against Hawthorn, which was subsequently diagnosed as a fracture and it ultimately curtailed his AFL season.

The match committee then scoured its ranks and went  to  Adam  Selwood.  He  had  shown a capacity to run with some of the most talented midfielders in the competition so, they reasoned, he probably had the defensive where-with-all to succeed in the role.

Selwood embraced that responsibility and was rarely beaten in the second half of the season. In the semi-final against the Western Bulldogs he went to Brad Johnson when the gun Dog was threatening to take the game away from West Coast in the first half.

And in two finals against Sydney he completed shut-down roles on Amon Buchanan  and Adam Schneider. Two potentially dangerous opponents had little impact in either match and his contribution was significant in the grand final.

One of only three players to play every game during the season – the others were Tyson Stenglein and Quinten Lynch – the under- stated Selwood was extremely consistent, evidenced by his top-five finish in the club champion award.

“As the  days  go  on,  it  is  more  realistic,  but it is still unbelievable and I think it is always going to be that way,” Selwood said of the premiership triumph. “You look at the photos and stuff. Back then it was such a blur, because everything was happening so quickly but now you can enjoy it all.

“On the plane ride home it was  starting  to sink  in  a  bit,  we  understood  and  we  were enjoying the atmosphere of the crowd and the commentary, but out there it was just business as usual, making sure we did the right things, we ran hard and all that.

“I haven’t seen the celebration bit yet and I reckon that will be the best part, watching everyone get their medallions, the lap of honour.”

Selwood sensed  that  Sydney  was  surging and understood the importance of playing his opponent tight. He didn’t want his man to be the one who broke free to kick the  winning goal. No one did and they all stood firm.

“We were hanging on,” Selwood said. “I knew we had to keep getting stoppages. We just had to keep getting our hands on the ball, to boot it as far as we could and to tick down the time as much as we could.

“It was good that our midfielders were pushing back into their forward line and crowding it up as much as we could. Whack’s (Andrew Embley’s) couple of marks back there were sensational and, in the end, taking those marks saved the game for us. If he hadn’t taken them, the ball could have taken a bounce and ended up in the hands of Sydney blokes.

“I am going to be able to sit down and appreciate the fact that for the whole year I was able to play every game, contribute every week. Last year I was thrown into different roles, while this year I had a role to play and I played it every week and the boys relied on me to play that role so we could win.

“I am pretty proud that I was able to fulfill that role and pretty proud that on grand final day I didn’t get over-awed and was able to do my bit and keep up to the standard I set across the whole year.

“As it worked out, at the end of the year it seemed I was best suited to small dangerous forwards, whereas  at  the  start  of  the  year if we had played Sydney it might have been someone different in the midfield.

“I love playing defence. It took a bit of getting used to. When you play in the midfield you think you get a bit of a free run at it, but you realise now the way the game is played, backline players are midfielders anyway because they’re getting the same amount of ball, it is getting moved so quickly.

“It gives me a great opportunity to run off.”

Family support has always been important to the versatile Selwood. His parents travel to Perth a couple of times a year to watch him play, which is not an easy task given that Adam’s twin brother, Troy, is at Brisbane.

And they were in the rooms after the game to celebrate the fulfillment of a long-held dream. 

“My family is pretty proud,” Selwood said. “Straight after there were a lot of tears, even for Troy to experience it was great because he had been there through the Lions, but I think it felt a bit special because a family member had done it.

“He has been able to see it first hand a couple of times. All the brothers are so envious, they want to achieve all the things that we have done here.”