Photo: Craig Barrow / Newspix

“Leo Barry, you star”

“Cox throws it onto the left...one last roll of the dice for the Eagles...

Leo Barry, you star!

Siren! The longest premiership drought in football history is over!”

- Stephen Quartermain, Network Ten

It was the mark that ended a 72-year premiership drought for Sydney – as well as West Coast Eagles’ 2005 AFL premiership hopes – as Swans defender Leo Barry leapt into a pack and emerged with the all-important Sherrin firmly in his grasp.

The game had been a closely fought contest all day. While the Eagles opened aggressively they struggled to convert and the Swans took a 20-point lead into the main break. At the start of the final term it was anyone’s game, with the Swans holding a mere two-point lead.

With just seconds remaining, the Swans were up by four points when the Eagles gave it one last roll of the dice.

Ruckman Dean Cox drove the ball perilously close to the Eagles’ scoring zone, where a massive pack was forming. As a mass of Eagles and Swans players rose, in from the side flew Barry and he safely marked the footy in front of a crowd of 91,898 roaring fans.

The winning grab has become an iconic image of Australian sport, though the photos also show that perhaps a free kick could have been awarded in the opposite direction, which may have made for a very different story!