West Coast Eagles members and fans will get the opportunity to acknowledge three of the club’s all-time greats when the club plays its first home game of the season against GWS next Sunday.
Former captains Luke Shuey and Shannon Hurn played for the final time in round 24 against Adelaide last season while talismanic ruckman Nic Naitanui had announced his retirement before that game.
All three will forever be etched in the annals of West Coast history as some of the highest achievers in the club’s 37-year journey. And they will chauffeured around Optus Stadium in the back of Hilux Utilities ahead of this battle with the Giants.
Naitanui was a generational ruckman, a unique athlete whose mix of explosive power and deft touch with the ability to gently roll the ball off his fingers into the path of feasting midfielders was such a mesmerising contrast.
He played 213 games before being cut down by an Achilles injury.
Shuey, who produced one of the greatest individual efforts in Grand Final history to win the 2018 Norm Smith Medal, battled chronic hamstring injuries at the tail end of a glittering 248-game career.
A two-time Club Champion he rates among the very best midfielders who boasted exquisite skills off both sides of his body.
The matter-of-fact Hurn played a club record 333 games for the Eagles, the only man to reach a triple century in blue and gold. The understated defender was captain of the 2018 premiership team and completed the day with the final sign off.
The squad had committed to a mantra of friends, family, flag and he put an emphatic tick alongside the hitherto vacant box sitting adjacent to the word ‘flag’.
Never before has the club farewelled three players of their equal at the same time and this lap of honour presents an opportunity for players and fans to give a final nod to their mutual respect.
So we urge to Be There!
When: Sunday, March 24
When: 3.20pm
What: Lap of Honour
Who: Nic Naitanui, Luke Shuey, Shannon Hurn
