Premiership reunions forever important to coach Dawson

Brian Dawson will forever take great pride in becoming the third premiership coach in Swan Districts history and he made sure the 15-year reunion was both a celebration of that success and honoured the memory of Andrew Krakouer.

Dawson enjoyed the chance to get together as a premiership group last Saturday when Swans played host to Claremont at Steel Blue Oval to commemorate the 15-year anniversary of the 2010 Grand Final triumph by a solitary point also against the Tigers at Subiaco Oval.

It was both an occasion to celebrate the achievement, but also honour the memory of Krakouer who was unbelievable in that game with 41 possessions and four goals to win the Simpson Medal, and all season long to claim the Sandover Medal.

“The bond we have is great! That won’t ever change I don’t think, it is one of the special things that a premiership brings, it is for the rest of your lives,” Dawson said.

“The club do an excellent job of honouring the premierships (all of them), as Swans don’t have that many, and it is always good to see many of the support staff that were involved back then, as we couldn’t have done it without their help.

“It is always a great time, the group is very solid and mixes very easily. It was a bit different this time, there was a sombre edge to it because we tragically lost Kraks several weeks before and we owe him so much for the 2010 premiership.

“His contribution throughout the season and on the day was simply outstanding, so we made sure that we paid him a tribute on the day, which we will do every time that we catch up.”

Dawson got to live out his dream in 2008 when appointed senior coach at Swan Districts on the back of taking the reserves to a premiership in 2006, and then building a team that was on the three-year path to premiership glory.

He took Swans to the grand final in 2008, there was a narrow preliminary final loss in 2009 and then that memorable premiership in 2010 before he handed over the role to Greg Harding, who would remain coach until the end of 2017.

He might not have played the number of league games he dreamed of with six appearances across 1977-78, but becoming a premiership coach well and truly made up for it joining only Haydn Bunton Jr and his idol, John Todd, in that select group.

“Coaching Swans was really great, but not something that I thought would necessarily happen…..I would have liked to have played more league games, but the coaching role certainly made up for it,” Dawson said.

“John Todd really encouraged me to go down the coaching path, and I am very glad that I listened to his advice!

“It is a little bit crazy that I am one of only three Swans premiership coaches, especially as the other two have seven flags between them, so you sort of pinch yourself on the reunion days about that.

“I just hope that I am not the last, and that the ninth Swans premiership won’t be too far away. Over the club’s history 20 year premiership droughts have unfortunately been the norm, so I really hope there is another one very soon.”

While there was the tinge of sadness to the premiership reunion following the recent death of Krakouer, Dawson agrees with his premiership captain Josh Roberts that reunions and celebrations are important to keep his memory alive.

“Yes, absolutely, every time we get together we will pay tribute to Kraks because the simple reality is that without his match winning performance, the group wouldn’t have that special bond that comes with a premiership,” he said.

“I do feel an obligation (a pleasant one) to keep the group in touch with each other at least once a year, which is something that Bill Walker has done very well with the 1960s group, so I have sort of taken a lead from that.”

Not only is Dawson a former player, a reserves premiership coach and league premiership coach with Swan Districts, but he’s also one of the club’s great historians.

That has included him writing John Todd’s autobiography, Six Decades of Footy, and having a significant part in the 75 Years of Black & White history book, and now he’s hard at work on another project.

Dawson is currently working on a book celebrating the eight WAFL premierships won by Swan Districts and it’s nearing completion.

“The idea for this came from a chat I had with John Todd in early 2024, when I remarked to him that it was the 90th anniversary season of Swans,” Dawson said.

“He replied that as most of the club’s premierships had been won a long time ago, much of that history would soon disappear as those who were a part of it would not be around for much longer.

“So, we decided to revisit each premiership by (where possible) having the captain and coach watch a replay of the game, and I recorded their reflections and then intertwined them with those comments that had been made back at the time of the match, with most emphasis placed on how each game played out.

“There isn’t any full match vision of the 1961-62-63 Grand Finals and Haydn Bunton wasn’t available, so for those games I sat with Ken Bagley and Bill Walker and asked them questions about those games, having researched them from the press clippings.

“For the 1982-83-84 matches I sat with John Todd and Graham Melrose (1982) and Keith Narkle (1983-84) and watched the replays.

“For 1990, Brad Shine and Peter Hodyl watched the replay (as Toddy had sadly passed a few weeks before) and for 2010 Josh Roberts and myself enjoyed watching the game again. I hope to have it all finished and available by the end of June-July this year.”

Even Roberts himself admitted that was the first time he has sat down and watched the game in full from siren to siren when he and Dawson did it together recently. Even the premiership coach is always noticing new things when he sees it 15 years later.

“It brings back different memories every time you see it. I think most of the group have watched the final few minutes many times, but probably not the whole game,” he said.

“You probably notice certain things that you hadn’t seen before as you can watch it ‘relaxed’, without any pressure attached.

“In any one-point game the final couple of minutes are focused upon heavily, but when you view the whole game you see that there were many pivotal and really important moments that in the end may have helped make the difference.

“Even our players on the day who had ‘quiet’ games, they all had important moments where they impacted the game.”

Given Dawson’s grasp on the history of Swan Districts and the WAFL as a whole, he is in a great place to judge where that 2010 Grand Final as a game since among the best ever in the competition.

Understandably he might be a little biased, but he finds it hard to imagine it’s not at least right up on the podium as the greatest match in WAFL history, and one of the best if not the best ever at Subiaco Oval.

“Gee, that’s a tough one, so many people that you see say that it is the best game they have ever seen (including AFL matches),” Dawson said.

“When the difference is the barest of margins that naturally creates some sort of ‘aura’ about the game.

“Perhaps because of Andrew Krakouer playing so well and getting the winner with 28 seconds left to play, which just added volumes to the story of his season and provided the perfect conclusion, it does maybe live in the memories of the people that were there to witness it a little more prominently.

“Certainly from our perspective, it is the greatest WAFL Grand Final ever played, but we accept that we are possibly a little bit biased……”