Sitting in the stands while his team prepared to battle Sydney in the 2005 grand final would have been painful for any player. Unfortunately, Beau Waters was all-too-familiar with the outer. A perch at the MCG was a change of scenery but certainly at Subiaco Oval for the club’s qualifying matches he’d become accustomed to playing the role of spectator. It’s the case for each of the winged Eagles.

For Waters, a victim of that modern day sporting scourge, osteitis pubis, it meant a full season of it. No footy whatsoever. It was a hard pill to swallow, especially for a young man who had re-located from South Australia, impressed in a 10-game debut season and promised so much as his second season loomed.

“Missing a year of footy is pretty hard stuff, especially as a young bloke and being interstate,” he said. “The support  from everyone around the club is probably what got me through.

“Seeing the boys get into the grand final last year was just a real driving force in me really realising that I just have the passion to play AFL footy. In my eyes, I did a lot of things right this year to get my body right and just tried to accept a  few of  the challenges  that were thrown out.

“Luckily enough we got over the line by a point and, looking back on this year, it was obviously a very, very successful year.”

Little did Waters know how the season would unfold when he won selection in round one against St Kilda, overcoming a knee injury in the pre-season to prove a useful ingredient in defence. The clash fell on his 20th birthday, a little reminder that he had years on his side and plenty to look forward to.

The wash-up of missing a year of football was frustrating though; Waters conceding that his touch was  a  little  scratchy  before  a wave  of form landed, ironically starting with a surge against the Saints in round 18. He gathered 34 possessions, flourishing as a running, rebounding defender which was complemented by a trademark hard edge.

The business end of the season was looming and West Coast craved that player, especially in a defence that had stumbled in parts of June and July and missed a ball-winning runner off half-back, largely through the injury-enforced absence of Mark Nicoski.

Waters was playing with reliability, flexibility, maturity. Not always guaranteed for a player entering his first finals series. Pinch-hitting as a forward for two important early goals in the qualifying final against Sydney, collecting 24 possessions against the Bulldogs and adding 21 in the preliminary final, he played his part. Three weeks of solid performances snowballed for the biggest game of his career.

If he was a bundle of nerves, Waters certainly showed no outward  sign,  though  one  piece of play would have settled down any jitters. Riding the momentum of his side being 16 points up midway through the first quarter, Waters pounced on a loose ball just outside West Coast’s attacking 50. Scooping it up in one hand, he hardly broke stride to launch it towards an empty goal-square.

Despite the shot  slewing wide it was one of those settling, composed touches; Sydney forced to return the ball to play and Waters unlucky not to thread one of the memorable goals of the game.

Fifteen of his 17 kicks were effective, as were his six marks in a harrowing last quarter, all the more meritorious considering the pain he was enduring.

Fears that the youngest man on the field would not return after the final change were very real. Similar to his captain, Waters had sustained a shoulder injury in a contest and team medicos suggested that it  may  have  dislocated  only to find its way back into  the  socket.  Waters was sore. Real sore, but had it strapped and headed back out.

With West Coast seven points up at the 25- minute mark of the final term, Sydney’s Tadhg Kennelly sent the leather deep into the Swans attacking zone.

The ball was high, kicked under pressure, a mess of players from both sides clambering for position. As it descended to within reach, it was the young West Coast star who read the height, the rush of a blue and yellow guernsey the only hint that a defender had taken the grab.

“I’ve had a couple of people ask and I still haven’t seen it,” Waters said in the days after the game. “It’s not something I’ve really chased up. At the end of the day we won and we won by a point. All of the things that are clear in my head are what happened after the game and how we just celebrated and embraced and just had the greatest time of all time.”

The final siren was a stirring moment. As Dean Cox and Stephen Doyle jostled for position, it sounded, Cox raising his hands to the skies before reaching for Waters, who had gone to water.

“I was staring at the time-clock just watching it second by second,” the latter recalled of the dying moments. “It was going so slow, I reckon a couple of seconds went backwards.

“It was the most euphoric feeling when the siren went. I just lost all inhibitions, all emotions, it was just amazing and just hugging and kissing, swearing and running and jumping… it was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever felt.

“That’s why the game’s so great and why sport’s so great, because you get to embrace other people, your teammates and get these bonds that will forever be there,” he continued.

“It’s a great honour to be in that side and to be the youngest is something nice. It’s pretty scary because the playing group, the club and the direction that we’re going in, we’re going to be a formidable force over the next few years.

“It’d be great if we could create another dynasty and I think if we play the footy that we’re capable of and we stick together as a team, 2006 will just be the building block for something great.”

Age. Shoulder. Efforts.  Waters  had  his  share of stories from the day. He even collapsed in the change-rooms post-match  after choosing a celebratory beer over Powerade or water to replenish his fluids.

To Waters it was the main story that mattered most. A premiership player at 20, he had a good start.