BigFooty Forum

It’s been a weird week at West Coast. Well, perhaps not within the club itself, but certainly for the legions of fans across the country. Well, perhaps not all the fans, but certainly the collection of mentally unstable individuals who regularly convene on the Eagles BigFooty board. At lunch time on Sunday, we were apparently flag favourites. We had a list so deep that Adele could roll in it (ooh that’s a good one…). Our forward line was untouchable, our back line resolute, and our young midfield was about to reach levels of excellence never before seen in the AFL. And then everything changed.

It’s a day that will go down in infamy in the history of our great club. There have been some testing times for the West Coast Eagles over the journey, but surely the events of the third of March, 2013, will surely be locked in as the most traumatic. For on that day, we played poorly in a pre-season match.

While it would be foolish to completely disregard the game and ignore the obvious areas that need improving, it would be flat out mental to throw the toys out of the cot after the loss. And boy howdy, has there been some toy out of the cot throwing. Our midfield is now complete pants, competitive perhaps with the likes of the Bulldogs or someone shite like that, but against the likes of the Pies, we may as well not show up. It turns out we wrong about Jack Darling, and he’s rubbish as well. Josh Hill? Terrible. Ash Smith? Waste of a list spot. Matt Priddis? Awful. Okay that last one might be true.

The truth of the matter is that Worsfold and co are not in the least bit worried about the result, and will attribute the poor showing to an unusually heavy week at training and their commitment to trialling new setups and systems throughout the NAB Cup. Perhaps we should follow suit, eh? In saying that, our midfield setups still leave a lot to be desired. All too often last season we saw all of our midfielders finish in exactly the wrong position, leaving all three of the oppositions’ goal side and able to stream it out, and so it proved again on Sunday. It’s something that needs urgent addressing, because we have very good ruckman, and individually I think we have very good midfielders, but we can’t win a bloody clearance to save ourselves. Sort it out please.


Our other main concern at present is this nagging injury list. God knows when Naitanui will be back, to be perfectly honest it’s probably not even worth us worrying about. It could be round one, it could be round ten. It hurts my brain trying to work it out. Wellingham’s injury is worse than first reported, and as such his status has been upgraded from ‘Cheeky Little Devil’ to ‘Complete Div’. Why f*ck around on a trampoline a month out from the season? Bloody hell, Sharrod. The worst thing is that his cool head and clean hands is exactly what our midfield needs. At least he’ll be back in round two-ish. Hopefully. Dunno about Kerr, dunno about Nicoski, dunno about Waters. We don’t know much at all, really.

So now we have Port Adelaide, a side who have shown some signs of improvement in this tournament, but one that once the real thing starts, we should flog with the fury of a thousand suns. It’s hard to tell what sort of squad we will take up north for this game, but I would wager that the senior players will be managed pretty heavily, and that we might see a few of the new guys running around. That might mean a first hit out for Cale Morton, or another chance for Mark Hutchings to stake a claim for a spot in the middle. I would hope that we would stop faffing about with all this experimental nonsense and start to practice the way we will play in round one, but I am pretty confident that the club would have a better idea of how the team are shaping up than I do.

Again, there’s not much point talking about the opposition yet, because from our perspective, the game isn’t really about them. Their new bloke Wines looks a great player, despite having a head like a fifty cent piece, and the permanently-surprised Eberts are a familiar foe for us. But who really cares about them, all we want to get out of this game is a good hitout, some noticeable improvement in the game plan and in individuals, and for the love of god, no injuries please. If we win, then that’s great. If we lose, then I fear the response on here.
Quite frankly, I’m very glad that this is the last one of these I have to write for the NAB Cup. The next game that we play after this is the round one derby, and that is going to be massive. Every single game we play this season is going to be of the utmost importance, and there’s only one more little sideshow before one of the most important West Coast seasons in recent history begins. But let’s at least hope this sideshow is an enjoyable one.