Australian Football

After enjoying star status in West Australian country football with Bruce Rock, Gavin Chaplin was lured to the city by West Perth in 1985. He produced an excellent debut season, registering 49 goals from 20 games to top the Falcons’ list in a competition surpassed for strength and significance only by the VFL.

Two years later, a new Perth-based VFL club, the West Coast Eagles, was launched, and the West Australian football landscape was instantly and permanently changed. Perhaps the single most obvious and significant consequence was that the very best players in the state were now tied to the Eagles rather than the WAFL, a state of affairs which inevitably devalued the latter. Wanting to play in the strongest competition open to them, over the next few years a handful of West Australian players ventured to Adelaide, which was home to the SANFL, now perceptibly the second strongest league in the land. Gavin Chaplin, who joined Central District in 1988, was one of these players, and perhaps ultimately the most successful. In seven seasons with the Bulldogs he played 144 games and bagged 202 goals, to add to the 37 games and 72 goals registered with the Falcons. After retiring as a player Chaplin undertook a 14 year stint as an assistant coach at Centrals.

Author - John Devaney