Andrew Embley is considered one of simply 5 West Coast gamers to ever win a Norm Smith Medal, but when he took an opportunity provided to him on the finish of 2002 he may by no means have been.
Embley completed his profession as a one-club participant, turning out for the Eagles in 250 video games between 1999 and 2013.
His greatest recreation is arguably the 2006 grand ultimate when he had 26 disposals and kicked two targets of their thrilling one-point win over Sydney – incomes him the Norm Smith Medal as best-on-ground.
Embley revealed Port Adelaide got here laborious to attempt to recruit the wingman to play for the Power.
“At the end of 2002 I was at the crossroads, I remember going into our exit meeting, our end-of-season meeting with the coach and there was a lot of speculation that West Coast were going to get rid of me,” Embley instructed Triple M.
“I wasn’t really quite sure if I was going to get another contract and I remember my manager speaking to me saying ‘Don’t worry about how the meeting goes because I have had a lot of interest from a lot of clubs, in particular Port Adelaide’.
“I went into the meeting with John Worsfold and Woosh said to me ‘Do you want to stay?’, gave me the opportunity and I said ‘I want to stay at West Coast’.
“I never got an offer from another club but my manager told me that Port Adelaide in particular were really going hard to get me to Port.
“Two years later Port had won the grand final, they’d beaten Brisbane in a grand final in 2004 and that Christmas I ran into the coach of the Port Adelaide Football Club in South Australia called Choco (Mark) Williams and he said ‘Embers, you’ve got no idea how hard we tried to get you to Port and if you had of come, guess what? You’d be a premiership player by now’.”
“In the end, it all worked out really well but I must admit there was a little bit of me when he said ‘We wanted you, we were trying to get you, we were going to offer you a lot more money than I would’ve got at West Coast’ and in the end it worked out really well.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
