Sharks to unveil premiership flags at new facility

East Fremantle president Mark Stewart says he is proud that the club’s first game at their new facility will see them unveil two premiership flags.

Despite East Fremantle Oval being out of action for the past two seasons, the Sharks claimed their 30th WAFL premiership and their first since 1998 with a 39-point grand final win over Peel Thunder at Optus Stadium on Sunday to go with their WAFLW premiership won in July.

Stewart told Sports Breakfast he was delighted with how the club had coped during the redevelopment.

“You look at what we’ve achieved when we haven’t been at home, there’s a great saying, ‘good things come to those that wait’. We’ve just got to be patient and get it right,” Stewart said.

“We would want to be in there the first quarter of next year.

“From a training point of view, we’d like to look at training ideally by the end of the year. There’s been a bit of a delay with the grass being planted due to the weather.”

The news of an alleged salary cap breach from the 2022 season broke on the eve of the finals, with Stewart saying the investigation was still being finalised by the WAFC.

“I’d expect to hear something back in the next two to four weeks,” he said.

“I’m very comfortable in where that’s at and how we’ve responded. I’m on the record as saying it was an administrative error, there was no competitive advantage out of it.

“We’ve reviewed some of our processes to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It shouldn’t have happened, but we’ll take that in our stride and deal with it when it comes.”

Stewart also paid tribute to departing CEO Todd Shimmon, who will leave the club’s top job next month after nearly nine years of service.

“His strength is around football and you’ve seen the results. When he came to the club, where our football was at, he was a large part of [turning that around],” he said.

“We’ve advertised the role, we’ve got CV’s coming through.

“The recruitment team will meet next week and start the review process of what’s coming.”

IMAGE: The West Australian