Mark Duffield - The Editorial (10.06.2026)

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**Mark Duffield** (0:30)
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the SENWA Radio Studio. We're out here at Optus Stadium. It is a Wednesday morning in Perth. We're here thanks to Beaumont Homes Award-winning design built to be loved forever. It is cloudy in the city today. Possible showers are top of 18 degrees. Made in WA for WA. This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA. It's great to be with you this morning as a week of honours for WA footy greats continue. So hot on the heels of West Coast great Chris Lewis being recognised with an Order of Australia in the King's Birthday honours released on Monday. We had Eagles Premiership captain and coach John Worsfold elevated into the AFL Football Hall of Fame. And even more significantly, Swan District's champion Billy Walker elevated to legend status at the Hall of Fame dinner in Melbourne last night. They joined the little master Gary Ablett Jr., South Australian big forward Tim Evans, Northern Territorian David Cantilla, Essendon defender Dustin Fletcher, and umpire Hayden Kennedy as the 2026 honorees. So the Hall of Fame function is a special night on the AFL calendar. And tonight, which creates great camaraderie amongst the West Aussies. I've only been to a couple, but I know at both the ones I went to, the West Aussies ended up together at the end of the evening. Both Walker and Worsfold hold special places in WA footy history.
Any Premiership won by a team is special, but there is only ever one first flag. Both Walker and Worsfold can lay claim to playing in their club's first flag. So Woosher was the skipper of the Eagles' first flag in 1992 He inherited the leadership from Steve Malaxis in the middle of a final series in 1990, and he became the standard bearer for the Eagles in terms of toughness, courage, preparation and determination during the club's extraordinary run of 10 final series in a row in the 1990s. Now, while captain Ross Glendinning, who came through the juniors at East Perth but cut his VFL teeth with North Melbourne in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was technically West Coast's first All-Australian player, he was named on the Interchange bench in 1987 when he was the Eagles' inaugural captain. But Worsfold was the first young West Coast player to come through the ranks at the club and into the All-Australian team when he was named at a half-back flank in 1988 And what made that achievement more remarkable is that Worsfold had played that entire season as a teenager. He turned 20 on September 25, 1988 He was the obvious choice to succeed Malaxuses the skipper two years later, even though he was still only 21, and he became a standard setter for the club. Some would say it's enforcer for the rest of his 209-game career. He holds a place marginally ahead of long-serving football manager and CEO Trevor Nisbett as the most influential figure in the club's history. There were his three grand finals and two flags as captain, and then another two grand finals and the 2006 flag as coach, in an era when he took the club into finals eight times in 12 seasons before he was succeeded by Adam Simpson at the end of the 2013 season.
And he's now returned to the club, of course, as its head of football operations.
Billy Walker played in Swan District's first ever Premiership team in 1961 He was the backup rover to Hayden Button Jr. in that team. So that meant he played mainly out of a forward pocket. But as a teenager in that team, he kicked 62 goals in the season. He also kicked 5 in the grand final win over East Perth. So Walker quickly established himself alongside Perth's Barry Cable as one of the two standout rovers in the WAFL. And Swans won back to back to back flags in 1961, 62 and 63, under Hayden Button. And Walker won back to back to back Sandover medals in 1965, 66 and 67 And when he was retrospectively awarded the 1970 medal alongside Perth's Paddy Dalton, after the league recognised those who had lost medals on countbacks, Walker became the only player in WAFL history to win the Sandover medal four times. He was tough. He was fast. He was fearless.