The Footy Boss: An in-depth look at all things West Coast
The Eagles hold the draft’s golden tickets but face intense pressure to avoid mistakes that could haunt the struggling club for years to come.
West Coast holds the top two picks in the draft and as luxurious as that is, it is a high pressure situation.
Getting these two selections right could shape the club for a long time and plenty goes into making the best calls.
NAILING THE TOP TWO PICKS
West Coast holding picks 1, 2 and 13 has a similar feel to Hawthorn in 2004, when the Hawks took Roughead, Franklin and Lewis all together.
Those sort of selections can be the makings of premiership teams.
It is a pretty special draft hand but as special as it is it adds pressure to the club to nail those picks.
You are having to pick the best two players in the country with all the information you have at hand.
You back your draft board in and they will be going for the best available talent.
If it is really tight between getting a tall in, they might go that way to cover some list options but midfielders are more reliable.
History suggests if you take 10 top-10 midfielders, eight of them will probably make it but with the talls you may only get a couple who make it.
It can be more of a risk taking a key position player because it is a harder role to read.
Going into a draft with picks 1 and 2 and how much work they have to do on their list, the Eagles may consider splitting those picks and getting more draftees in.
It is a rare draft where there are a number of clubs holding multiple picks, with Richmond holding 3 and 4, Essendon 5 and 6 and Carlton 9 and 11.
Given that means more clubs than usual don’t have top-10 picks, that could present an opportunity for West Coast.
In those situations you are working really closely with your recruiting team.
With every single player in your draft order you need to be aware of who you would slide up for and who you would go back for.
It is up to other clubs to make an offer West Coast can’t refuse.
West Coast has a close eye on ruck-forward Cooper Duff-Tytler.
I went to school with his dad Jason at St Bernard’s College in Essendon. He was a talented footballer himself and won our best-and-fairest in year 12.
Not only was Jason a talented ruckman but an elite sprinter and he won 100m sprints at school while standing at 200cm.
Jason was also the deadliest fast bowler in the region and was basically unplayable for us batsmen at that age.
So I know Cooper comes from a talented family and the reports about him as a prospect sound similar to Jason at that same age.
The Eagles will likely take Gippsland product Willem Duursma with the first pick in the 2025 draft.
It is an unbelievable story to have so many children from the family in the elite system, with Willem set to be the fourth after Xavier, Yasmin and Zane.
I was lucky to spend some time with Yas at Carlton. They are obviously a talented and very driven family.
Yasmin would be telling me they would be getting up in the early hours to do hill runs so they obviously love their sport and are competitors.
West Coast is in the position to bid on some academy players with either of those top picks.
Clubs these days are very mature about bidding, I don’t think they would bid just to be a pest for another team or make them pay a bit more because you need to be accepting of the fact you take a risk and that player becomes yours if the bid is not matched.
I would think they focus on who they rate the highest. If they rate those academy boys the highest they may well bid.
I would think they would rank their order accordingly and wouldn’t be playing any games with it.
COMPO WORKAROUNDS AND ASSISTANCE PACKAGES
The Brandon Starcevich deal was West Coast’s big focus of the trade period.
He comes in as a great addition for West Coast with his premiership experience. There would have been some medical consideration with him and the concussions he has had.
Clubs are getting more skilled at assessing that.
On those occasions you work closely with his management group and the medical staff to get access to all the information you need.
West Coast has said it has a strong timeline on the head knocks he has had and they are comfortable with that.
Once a player is medically cleared, the list management team is free to go ahead and do what they need to do.
While Starcevich was a free agent, West Coast traded for him to make sure it didn’t impact the pick 2 compensation they received for losing Oscar Allen to Brisbane.
All recruiting teams are so sophisticated these days and put so much thought into what deals are done together and what is kept separately and while they will never break the rules, they bend them if they need to.
There will be ways to work the system and the AFL will close any loopholes if they don’t sit right.
Rules are constantly evolving and often list management is about who can best exploit the current rules until they get changed by the AFL, so people in those positions are very smart.
For a club in West Coast’s position you don’t want to lose a player like Oscar but when you get an outstanding compensation pick like that, it can be a great result overall.
He was a restricted free agent and in those circumstances you can match the offer and work towards a trade if you are not happy but the Eagles accepted the pick 2.
West Coast are such a powerful team and having spent time over in Western Australia, I have seen up close how they are a strong and impressive club.
It shows you how far they have fallen to be receiving assistance packages off the AFL.
The AFL worked with what their needs are by giving them a good pick – which was part of the trade for Starcevich – but also extra rookie spots in the next three years that have to be funded by West Coast.
The rookie spots gives them an extra chance to find a few players themselves but doesn’t impact the draft pool and wouldn’t have raised too many eyebrows across the league.
Hopefully they can get some depth out of those extra spots.
There are so many dynamics going on across the clubs with academies and father-sons, so an assistance package probably passes through the thoughts of other clubs a bit quicker than it may have in the past.
Everyone understands it but it doesn’t make anyone else’s job easier when picks continue to be pushed back by the AFL handing out extra choices.
We saw this year a real shift in teams trading for high end players and not having the top picks because the draft is so compromised and choices will be pushed back.
If you are a club trying to land a good player even three first-round picks doesn’t get it done because of the calibre of the first-round picks.
There are ripple effects going on everywhere.
West Coast also has the No.1 pick in the pre-season draft and the obvious question is whether they go for Callum Ah Chee.
He is a South Fremantle boy, so it could make some sense for him to go to Perth.
He may have his heart set on going to Adelaide but given it would be a free hit for West Coast, the Eagles would be negligent to not ask the question.
LIST OVERVIEW
List changes – In:Brandon Starcevich (Brisbane Lions), Tylar Young (Richmond)
Out:Oscar Allen (Brisbane Lions), Campbell Chesser (Carlton), Liam Ryan (St Kilda), Jeremy McGovern, Jayden Hunt, Dom Sheed (retired), Coen Livingstone, Jack Petrucelle, Loch Rawlinson (delisted)
List gaps
West Coast’s list manager Matthew Clarke was a long term Richmond recruiter and he was at the Tigers when they took Tylar Young in the rookie draft so he is a player Clarke would have known well.
He seems a really good option for them given they lost Tom Barrass to Hawthorn and Jeremy McGovern retired.
McGovern is a star and irreplaceable but they are starting to fill the key back spot with Young, who is 196cm.
A player they seemed to have interest in mid-season was Darcy Cameron, who is a WA local from Claremont.
He would have been an attractive option for them but having had a great couple of years, he may have been looking to get closer to what he was worth from Collingwood.
The Pies came to the party so the Eagles will keep developing their rucks.
List strengths
Harley Reid has clearly been seen as West Coast’s most talented young player on the current list and has been spoken about a lot, in particular around a return home.
He signed a new contract to stay at West Coast and managing him under all the pressure he has faced is important.
West Coast is a big club and in a two-team town, so like Nic Naitanui in his day, Harley would be the biggest figure in WA and get enormous attention.
He is away from home, so he would have to be well supported.
Senior coach Andrew McQualter is a very level headed guy who values getting the basics right.
He would be a grounding sort of coach and I think head of football John Worsfold is a really mature football figure and would be an important person in Harley’s life as well to support him through it all.
There is no doubt it would be a challenge to support him and to continue to balance out his need to influence games by adding more talent around him to lessen the need for him to dominate games himself.
Deven Robertson will add a little bit to them as a delisted free agent as a physical type of player who can help them through the middle of the ground.
The Eagles have committed to signing Fin Macrae as well, so have targeted some mature bodies in the midfield.
Campbell Chesser was a first-round pick who seemed to be rated at a reasonable level by the club and they put in a contract offer to keep him but he has gone to Carlton.
Draft hand – 1, 2, 13, 34, 41, 58
West Coast will have spent plenty of time watching its draft targets play on the field but interviews and character off the field can be vital when heading into the draft.
On the character side, competitiveness is the main thing you are focused on.
Obviously you want quality character and values – players who go in and compete but also love the game.
As exciting as the AFL life is, it can be a grind day-to-day. You see some players in the off-season training hard to prepare for the start of pre-season.
You have to be really committed to make it at a high level so you are looking for players with those attributes.
You might have some who are a bit more talented but with those high picks, clubs will often favour the ones that have more of a natural bent towards that competitiveness and love the game.
Salary cap
The other thing that is going to be really important for West Coast to rise up the ladder is focusing on retention and running a really good football department and program so they can maintain and hold these early picks.
Given it appears unlikely the Eagles will take a WA local with either of their first two picks, it adds to that need to create a really great environment to keep talented players at the club.
So far, they have done a good job by signing Harley Reid to an extension.
HIGH PERFORMANCE CHECK-IN
The Eagles pulled Phil Merriman over from cross-town rivals Fremantle after Mat Inness left the club to join Essendon.
Merriman was well respected at Fremantle in his five years there and comes across to West Coast with plenty of experience, having also worked at Melbourne and Hawthorn.
Inness is a quality person who returns to Victoria, having previously worked at the Western Bulldogs before moving to Perth.
THE COACH’S BOX
Mitch Duncan is a great appointment for their coaching panel because he has been away for a long time in a great program at Geelong and is returning as a WA local.
He has joined the Eagles as backline coach and it is a good opportunity for him and a good get for West Coast to use the skills he has learnt at Geelong over 16 years.
West Coast also brought Sam Radford across from Melbourne and he would have had a strong connection with McQualter when they both worked at the Demons.
FRONT OFFICE
West Coast is seen as a powerful club and it is often asked why clubs in that position don’t go over the soft cap and pay the league tax as a result to have bigger football departments.
It is not unheard of to spend over the cap but with the soft cap going up in the last year there should be enough room to work with what you have got, given there is a good increase.
Clubs have been pretty responsible in recent years and with the increase some may have gradual additions.
If you can justify as football GM that extra spend and tag it to something the club thinks is worthwhile you can build a strong case for the board to approve.
Some of the bigger clubs can work with you on that but you want to make sure there is no wastage, and you are running a financially responsible football department.
There is opportunity for a club like West Coast at the right time to go beyond the cap when they are competing a bit stronger towards the pointy end of the ladder but now might not be the time for that just yet.
Originally published as The Footy Boss: An in-depth look at all things West Coast
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