20 years on: A look back at Sandringham's 2006 Premiership
16/05/2026
This Sunday, when the Zebras take on the GWS GIANTS in the VFL Round 8 clash at Wilson Storage Trevor Barker Beach Oval, a group of past players will be watching on and reliving a golden era in club history.
2006 famously saw Sandringham complete a three-peat of VFL premierships, adding a 10th flag to the trophy cabinet in what was a hugely successfully period for the club, and Sunday will see them gather to mark 20 years since being crowned Premiers for a third straight season.
On that historic day for the club, September 24, 2006, the Zebras defeated Geelong Reserves 13.13 (91) to 11.7 (73) at Princes Park, sealing only the sixth VFL three-peat at the time in over 100 years of competition.
For vice-captain of that 2006 side, Rod Crowe, who now sits proudly in the Sandringham Football Club Hall of Fame, it was a premiership that felt almost inevitable, with talks of a three-peat happening as early as the preseason.
“I think at the time we felt like we were invincible after winning two and largely keeping the same core playing list,” he said.
“We were pretty confident in our abilities as a team, and looking forward to the three-peat, really. That's what we were trying to achieve.”
A 13-5 regular season saw Sandringham finish second on the ladder at the conclusion of the home and away season behind the Northern Bullants, who shaped as the team to beat in the finals series after taking out the minor premiership with a 17-1 record.
It was a solid foundation ahead of the Finals series, Crowe said, with the team knowing that if they reached September in touch with the top teams, they would be hard to beat.
“I think the history that we'd had together as a playing group and the alignment between Sandringham and Melbourne meant that we were pretty confident,” Crowe said.
“We knew that if we were thereabouts, we had the experience to go again, so I think finishing second was a great result, and other than the following year (2007) when we actually finished on top and bombed out in two finals, I think it was our highest finish out of the three flags.
“We had a pretty solid season, there were always three or four sides that were really strong throughout our whole three-peat, so I think to finish second, it was a pretty good achievement.”
Among those five losses throughout the regular season, though, stood two defeats to the Zebras’ eventual Grand Final opponents in the Cats.
They were fierce affairs, never decided by more than a few goals, with the round 18 clash, just two weeks before finals, a one-point thriller going the way of Geelong, although Sandringham kicked 22 behinds in the loss.
“Not really,” Crowe laughed when asked if he recalled much about the two home and away contests against the Cats.
“I think Geelong at the time had a lot of good, young AFL players that actually went on to play, and I can't even remember the full teams, but they were pretty strong that year.
“I don't recall the games at all, to be honest, but I remember the Grand Ginal a little bit, and I definitely remember the Prelim, because we absolutely flogged the Northern Blues, and we were just on from the outset.”
The Zebras and Cats would meet a further two times in the Finals series, firstly in the Qualifying Final, where Nick Sautner booted seven majors to help Sandy to a 21-point victory and a Preliminary Final berth against the minor premier Bullants.
On paper, that Prelim had all the hallmarks of a classic September stoush - the top two sides throughout the year doing battle for a spot in the Grand Final, but as Crowe alluded to, it wasn’t much of a battle at all.
Sandy won through to its third straight Grand Final with a 23.14 (152) to 10.12 (72) demolition of the Bullants, Ezra Poyas kicking a game-high five goals in a best on ground display and Crowe himself right behind with four in a performance that had the Zebras brimming with confidence.
“I just remember we were on fire,” Crowe said.
“We were all over them, we were quite physical and we kicked a really high score.
“It could have been even bigger - we kicked a lot of points I recall in that game as well, so we felt pretty confident rolling into the following week.”
Grand Final week can be a tense affair for all involved, but when you are going through it for the third year in a row, and with two premierships already under your belt, it turns into a pretty standard affair.
“It becomes a little bit more normal,” Crowe said of the build up to the decider.
“When you're playing with the same guys, week in, week out, we had a lot of success, we trained hard, you go through a lot of preseason training, and it builds you up to those moments.
“If you've gone deep into finals and won premierships like we had, you just have that the experience, which you only get through the repetitions of doing it at that level.
“I think we went in really confident. You're probably not as nervous as others that are playing in their first Grand Final, and you can definitely use that to your advantage.”
Geelong had won through to the Grand Final relatively comfortably too, beating Williamstown by 27 points in their Prelim, but from the outset of the decider, the Zebras definitely looked the more settled side.
Racing out to a 13-point lead over the Cats by quarter time on a wet and windy Grand Final day at Princes Park, Sandy maintained that margin to go into the rooms at half time ahead 6.4 (40) to 4.4 (28).
The advantage was stretched even further by the final change as the Zebras went into the huddle 34 points to the good, before reaching a game-high 35-point lead early in the fourth term, and the contest looked all but over.
But with the wind behind them, the Cats blew the contest wide open again with five goals in 10 minutes to draw within a kick with a handful of minutes remaining.
“I just know that the Grand Final was pretty much like the other two,” Crowe said.
“We were mostly in control of all three of the Grand Finals, but whether we ran out of legs, the season was catching up to us, or we just took the foot off a little bit, but in all three games, the opposing team came back.
“I think getting out to 35 points, knowing that this was the third, potentially we'd eased off a little bit. I’d have to go back and kind of watch it a bit closer.
“I know that I was pretty cooked towards the end, so I'm sure there were others (feeling the same), and if you give a team a sniff, and you’re playing against AFL players at the time, they're going to always keep going, keep cracking in and they probably have the legs as well.”
Grand Finals throughout history are littered with famous, match-defining moments, and the 2006 VFL decider was no different, as defender Andy Biddlecombe, who was named in the back pocket in the 2006 VFL Team of the Year a week earlier, stood up to be the hero.
Swung forward as the Zebras desperately tried to halt the momentum, Biddlecombe kicked the final two goals of the contest in the final five minutes to seal the 18-point victory, as Sandringham staved off the Cats’ fightback.
“That's the folklore, (Biddlecombe) got swung forward off half back,” Crowe said.
“I think the (goals came from) two set shots.
“Andy's a great player, he can play anywhere, but that definitely steadied the ship for us, we needed that.
“You tend to rely on someone like a Nick Sautner to bob up and kick goals like that, but he's always heavily defended, so ‘Bidders’ did a great job going forward and snagging two, which was good.”
Phillip Read, who was a Melbourne listed player at the time, was presented the Norm Goss Medal as best on ground in the win, with three-time Premiership Captain Chad Liddell joining coach Mark Williams on the stage to hoist the cup shortly after.
The celebrations at the final siren maybe didn’t match the elation of the ’04 triumph, - “you're still excited, but you've lived it already a couple of times,” Crowe said – and it is in the years since that he has come to recognise the enormity of winning three Premierships consecutively.
It is also why he is looking forward to the 20-year gathering so much this Sunday, as while it is important to recognise the wins, he said it is even more special to recognise the joy that period brought to such a wide group of people.
“It’s super important,” he said.
“I've had many moments over the 20 years and have been lucky enough to play in Premierships elsewhere, and you play football to win.
“You don't play football to pick up your paycheque at the end of the week - some people do maybe, but you play to win, and clubs are in competitions to win.
“It’s not just the playing group either. My dad comes with me every time we have a reunion, because he was part of it, and it's special to him.
“It's special to the supporters, it's special to the sponsors, it’s special to the admin staff and the people that are working there currently, so I think it's really special to do it...
“Footy is only one small part of everyone's lives, but it's great to be able to look back and see all the smiling faces. It made the team happy, it made me happy, but it also made so many other people happy.”
Written by Alexander Dabb - Sandringham FC Media