South Alice Springs stalwart key to a Roos revival
ASK anyone associated with Central Australian footy about the greats of the game in the Red Centre and you can bet the name Shaun Cusack will be one of the first that comes up.
After all, if you play your first game against men as a 13-year-old, there's bound to be some talent there.
Were it not for a back injury in his prime, however, we'd have seen more of the South Alice Springs stalwart than just the brief glimpse we caught in a handful of games as a teenager with Collingwood's reserves in the mid-1990s.
The 31-year-old Cusack is today leading his beloved Souths through a lean patch in the AFL Central Australia competition, where he has just won the league's leading goalkicking award.
Cusack, a one-time national schoolboys and Teal Cup representative and captain alongside some of the game's biggest names, booted 75 goals to secure the expanded competition's first trophy, which will be presented to him at tomorrow's presentation night.
"The fellas gave me plenty of opportunity to kick goals," the modest big man said.
It was the one bright spot for the Roos in their second year back in competition after crowd trouble in 2005 saw the club cop a one-year ban from the league.
They finished in 7th place this year with just five wins.
Brad Puls is a colleague of Cusack's at the Alice Springs Clontarf football academy. He also calls the AFLCA action for CAAMA radio and he reckons Cusack winning the goalkicking this season was nothing short of impressive, considering where his team finished.
"For him to lead the goalkicking is a fantastic achievement because they're a long way from their best," Puls said.
"He coped very well and his skills and ability to get hold of the ball in a side that lost more games than they won was an exceptional achievement."
Cusack felt for Pioneer's Dillon Measures, who needed eight goals to overtake his goals tally but who never go the chance because Hermannsburg forfeited their final-round match.
"But that's the thing about playing country footy; you just don't know what's going to happen from week to week," he said.
Cusack's football career is rich and varied. He's played in the old Country Cup for Western Aranda (Hermannsburg) in 2001 and Yuendumu in 2005, and coached Rovers in 2006 and 2007.
He had a brief stint in the WAFL with newcomers Peel Thunder in 1998.
In 1991 and 1992, Cusack was All-Australian in the Schoolboys team and played Teal Cup for three years from 1991 and was captain in 1993. He played in the VSFL in 1994 for Eastern Ranges from where he was plucked to play for Collingwood's reserves under coach Stan Magro.
He is a Souths premiership player in the years 1993, 1995 and 2003. He also won a flag with Wanderers against St Mary's in the NTFL in the 1992/93 season. This is what Cusack wants the most for Souths again and he says he has 'three or four years' left in him to lead them to it.
"It's been disappointing this year because normally we're a pretty strong club," he said.
"But we've given ourselves every chance to bounce back. We really want to get back up there (on the ladder).
"At this stage, we're rebuilding and we've got a really good bunch of youngsters in Under-17s who finished on top of the ladder coming through. So I reckon we're about three years away."
AFLCA medal count tomorrow night
AFL Central Australia will hold its awards night in Alice Springs tomorrow after its first day of finals.
Among those in with a chance to win the league's fairest-and-best award, the Minahan Medal, are Charlie Maher from South Alice Springs, Pioneer's Curtly Hampton and Wests' Scott Taylor.
Tomorrow's Under-17s finals will feature South Alice Springs and Anmatjere in the second semi-final and Rovers and Ltyentye Apurte clashing in the knockout first semi-final.
DARREN MONCRIEFF
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Friday, September 5, 2008
Last Modified on 05/09/2008 01:07