What if Leo Barry’s mark wasn’t paid?

Regrets are an inevitable part of life. They come with the territory of breathing and are a part of the unwritten deal we all sign for the right to exist.

Although some contrition can feel enormous – such as the misery born when a relationship breaks down or after committing a far more criminal act – others are forgotten in the blink of an eye.

In terms of the unpredictable game of football, there are a plethora of scenarios that have made or broken careers.

What if your side picked a different player from a certain draft?

What if your star spearhead had kicked straight when it mattered?

What if an agonising loss had instead been a win for the ages?

Well, for fans of every creed we have sought to answer the question that has rankled you for years and kept you up at night for far too long.

We can't promise that we won't open old wounds, as let's face it, that is the entire point of the exercise.

From Adelaide to the Bulldogs, Fitzroy to the Bears, here are every club's biggest 'what if' moments since the dawn of the AFL era in 1990.

OTHER WHAT IFS: Adelaide, Brisbane Bears, Brisbane Lions, Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Fremantle, Geelong, Gold Coast, GWS, Hawthorn, Melbourne, North Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Richmond, St Kilda, Sydney

Alright, Eagles fans. You're up today.

What if Ashley Sampi was awarded a free-kick late in the 2005 grand final?

Those that prefer reality will know that when the final siren sounded at the MCG on the 24^th of September 2005, 72 years of irritation and devastation were eased in an instant for Swans fans everywhere.

But as has been repeatedly stated within this series, sometimes alternative timelines are much more fun to navigate. In the case of the West Coast Eagles, they can end up more profitable too.

Those of us who witnessed the events of the 2005 grand final unfold will, no doubt, have seen Sydney defender Leo Barry levitate across a pack of players to grab the Sherrin during time-on and then proceed to shake down thunder from the afternoon sky.

Still, what may have escaped many was the fact that for Barry to take not only the deciding mark but also his place in footballing immortality, it was necessary for one of his Blood brothers to first clip the wings of a high-flying Eagle.

Following his grab, and then eventually the siren, ‘Leaping Leo' was mobbed by a bank of Swans, however, the first man to meet the Swans' saviour did so with red hands.

Study the now-famous image below, and you will see a pack of six players clad in the uniforms of two teams. Yet, beyond Barry, mustering an eyes-closed assault on the leather, you will also notice an infringement on the right side of the contest.

Tadhg Kennelly started out his secondary career as an AFL footballer in 1999 after trading a spherical O'Neill's ball for the oval-shaped Sherrin. The man from Country Kerry would be forced to wait a further pair of seasons before making his big-league debut due to the time it would take to truly adapt to the pace, the tactics, the positioning and the rules of his adopted code.

However, by the dawn of Grand Final day in 2005, Kennelly had laced the boots for the Swans on exactly 100-occasions, so even though he was forced to learn on the run during the early years of the new millennium, he would have had more than just a fair idea of how to conduct ones self in the congestion of a marking contest by 2005.

According to the AFL-released document ‘The Laws of Australian Football', the Irishman's clenched right hand had the ability to loosen the Swans' grip on premiership glory.

Still, should you turn your eyes to rule 17.5.2 in said document, you will find that although Kennelly fell foul of the law after ‘holding or blocking an opposition player', the former Gaelic footballer did initially pass the open-ended spirit portion of the ruling – something that seems wildly incongruous.

In the words of the document, Kennelly was permitted to enter the aforesaid contest due to his sole objective of spoiling West Coast's Ashley Sampi from marking the ball.

Despite this, as the then-24-year-old held a fistful of the Eagle's forward's guernsey, a free-kick within Sampi's forward arc could well, and possibly should, have been paid.

Now, most footballing fans abide by the colloquial belief that umpires tend to ‘put their whistles away' during the dying stages of tight and meaningful matches, but what if the umpire on the spot had blown his whistle and stipulated that Kennelly had in fact been at fault?

Had the man in white – in this instance, Scott McLaren – who was placed on the correct side of the contest had used an eagle eye and extended his left arm out, Sampi would have become the first player in AFL/VFL history to attempt an after the siren shot for goal to win a premiership?

Having been taken with the sixth pick of the 2001 ‘Super Draft', it was clear from the outset that the West Coast Eagles held Ashley Sampi in high esteem. Although the Western Australian livewire would rise to unparalleled heights in 2004, claim the Mark of the Year and a new Toyota in the process, by time-on in the next season's decider, Sampi was yet to fully repay his club's faith.

2005 had seen the South Fremantle Bulldogs product slip in almost every measurable statistic from the year before. Not only had Sampi found the football at an average of 9.1 times per game in 2005 (down marginally from 9.3 in 2004) but his potency in front of goal had fallen off the proverbial cliff.

In his first three seasons in the league, Sampi had recorded yearly tallies of 2.1, 31.18 and 32.15 when shooting for the big sticks. However, by late September of 2005, Sampi had produced 20.24 across his 18 appearances for the season – a total he would not add to on the season's grandest stage.

Throughout four-quarters of the 2005 decider, the at-times silent Sampi had produced eight kicks, one handball and his scorebook had remained unmarked.

However, with a seasonal mean of producing a scoring shot every three-and-three-quarter possessions, optimistic Eagles backers would have claimed he was due.

And with West Coast sitting four points in arrears of their contemporary rival by the time that McLaren could have awarded Sampi his redemptive shot, only a goal would have seen the result altered.

Still, with a conversion rate of 45.45% for the season in shots that registered a score, it would have taken a fortuitous flip of a slightly weighted coin for Sampi to have delivered premiership success.

But as said attempt at goal would have taken place from around 30 metres out from the Ponsford Stand goal mouth, and on an exceedingly favourable angle for the right-footed Sampi, plenty would have backed the previously ineffective Eagle to have stolen Sydney's drought-breaking prize.

Some may argue that Sampi's odds of splitting the sticks would have diminished further due to the pressure that he would have been placed under, but the then-21-year-old had cold-blooded form when it came to splitting the sticks with post-siren kicks.

In Round 11 of the 2003 season, a then-teenaged Sampi, sporting a set of tight cornrows, slotted a goal after time had elapsed in just his 14^th game of AFL football.

Yes, this goal may have been to tie a game rather than win it.

And yes, there was no trophy on the line that day.

And yes, you're right, this shot at goal took place incrementally closer to goal in front of a parochial home town crowd.

But as Sampi held a 100 per cent strike rate in similar circumstances by the time he would have stood at the top of his mark in 2005, backing him to have altered history would not have been the worst bet.

Across the length of Ashley Sampi's career – 2002 until 2006 – West Coast and Sydney met on 11 occasions, with the ledger standing at 6-5 in the Eagles' favour.

And across these contests, the average winning margin sat at a meagre 16 points per contest, with both sides claiming flags by minuscule margins, each at the expense of the other.

However, had Scott McLaren decided that he had absolutely no desire to ever venture into South Melbourne or pockets of the Harbour City ever again, this 50-50 split could very well have become entirely one-sided.