The contrast could not have been more stark.

The MCG packed with 100,000 fans. Perth’s Mitchell Freeway eerily desolate. Just a handful of non-football devotees in their vehicles going about normal Saturday activities.

Pubs around the city were crammed. If they couldn’t get into licensed venues, they hosted parties at home. People draped in blue and yellow, adrenaline racing through their bodies as if they were actually playing the game.

It was Saturday, September 26, 1992 and the West Coast Eagles were in their second successive Grand Final.

The excitement and anticipation around this one was different to 12 months earlier. It was at the MCG against Geelong, rather than Waverley opposed to competition benchmark Hawthorn.

The Cats hadn’t won for 29 long years. They were a very good outfit, but not intimidating. 

After a slow start the Eagles got rolling in the middle of the second quarter and two late goals to Tony Evans meant they trailed by 12 points at half-time.

A 10 goal to four second half saw the Eagles win by 28 points. It was the biggest moment in Australian football history. For the first time a team from outside of Victoria had won the cherished premiership.

While excited West Australians spilled euphorically onto the streets in celebration, they were also prominent on Sunday when the triumphant Eagles returned. They lined the entire journey from Perth airport to Subiaco Oval where a welcome home was planned.

If players, coaches and staff were unaware of the magnitude of the performance, those with foggy heads had their senses awakened by that remarkable reception in their home town.

Thirty years on it still takes a little to get the head around.

Six years after pulling together a squad of 35 players to play in the biggest league in the country, the West Coast Eagles had conquered it. Six years. That’s just crazy.

To put that in context established Victorian clubs South Melbourne/Sydney (1933), Fitzroy (1944) Footscray (1954), Melbourne 1956, Geelong (1963) and St Kilda (1966) hadn’t tasted success for a generation or more.

And they didn’t have the impediment of needing to pull a squad together in 160 days with no home base; find $4m up-front to pay a licence fee, find support staff, establish club uniforms. And myriad other things.

Aggghhh, I can hear the nay-sayers trotting out the line about the foundation Eagles squad being a State team. Well it was in the sense that they all hailed from the west. But it was far from being a team that would have competed in the distinctive black swan guernsey against the might of the Big V.

The Vics made sure of that.

The decision to admit a WA team into an expanded VFL competition was deferred until the death knell, allowing the Victorian clubs to raid the WA talent pool one last time. They could also shore up any West Australians on their lists in 1986.

They completed their raid with ruthless precision.

Imagine Nicky Winmar, Mark Bairstow, Darren Bewick, Michael Mitchell, Peter Wilson, Michael Christian, Richard Dennis, Earl Spalding, Warren Dean and Peter Sartori in that team.

Now that would have been a State squad!

Wilson would return in 1990 to become a member of that history making 1992 team. So would Paul Harding, who along with champion forward/midfielder Gary Buckenara was blocked by the Melbourne Supreme Court from joining the inaugural Eagles.

Buckenara had already tasted success with the Hawks and was prevented from returning home while Harding had signed an agreement to play with Hawthorn before the green light had been granted for a WA licence. He sought to void the agreement because of the changed landscape but the WA Football Commission lost the case.

And Bewick had verbally agreed to play with the Eagles – his image was even on some of the early promotional paraphernalia – before Essendon talked him into going to Windy Hill.

This team was formed against a backdrop of resentment and anger from WAFL ranks, who had seen the proud local product diminish in standing.

And it was hardly accepted with open arms in Melbourne. Truth is the Eagles were formed because the game in both traditional markets was fraying at the edges.

Both competitions were living beyond their means. The VFL was paying unsustainable fees to interstate recruits and a handful of clubs were dominating the ladder of success.

In WA, it was a similar situation with the clubs squandering the large transfer fees they received,  often forking out big cash for VFL recruits who were past their peak. Half the WA clubs were technically insolvent.

The Eagles committed to a financial deal aimed at rescuing the WAFL but that almost sent them broke in 1989.

And six years later they are VFL premiers? Mind boggling!