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If you had told West Coast fans at the end of 2022 that Luke Shuey was likely to continue as captain in 2023, you would have surprised more than not.
Now, as the Eagles close in on their first major intra-club hitout of the summer on Friday with an announcement on their captaincy expected this week, it will come as a bigger surprise if Shuey isn’t endorsed to continue as the club’s on field leader.
Sometimes things change at football clubs without a game being played.
Sometimes, at conservative clubs like the Eagles, the more some things change, the more others are likely to stay the same.
Players have a say in who leads the Eagles onto the field but new chairman Paul Fitzpatrick, coach Adam Simpson, football manager Gavin Bell and chief executive Trevor Nisbett have all endorsed Shuey over the pre-season by either declaring he will likely continue or that they would be surprised if there was a change.
Anything that involves any kind of vote is by definition a political process but, in a football club’s political process, the club’s four off-field figureheads are a pretty decent lobby group to have on your side.
The main reason to question whether Shuey should continue for a fourth season is the state of his body. But if that is a selection criteria, you would wipe out all but one of the other captaincy contenders.
Shuey, 32, repeatedly hamstrung and restricted to 20 of his team’s 40 games in 2020 and 2021, managed to cobble together 17 games last year. Of other players in the captaincy window, Jeremy McGovern played 10 times and Nic Naitanui eight.
The hardworking and respected Liam Duggan, 26, managed 20 but has spent much of the summer rehabbing a knee complaint. Elliot Yeo played just five games. Oscar Allen, the youngster rated the Eagles’ most likely future captain, did not play at all last year and cannot be considered a contender.
That leaves Shuey and the club’s 2022 best and fairest winner Tom Barrass as the viable options. Barrass did say upon winning the Worsfold Medal that leading the club would be an honour but the club’s hierarchy are clearly pointing their players towards Shuey
The Eagles, attempting to rebound from a poor 2022 and in the early stages of a rebuild, will be trying to bed down a number of young players in their best 22 this year. But bedding down a new captain, who is an unproven quantity in the role, is introducing one more variable to the mix than they need to.
It reinforces the high regard Shuey has always been held in by the Eagles.
Drafted at pick 18 in 2008, he didn’t play at all in 2009 and played just six times in 2010. His first two seasons in the AFL were ruined by injury and a family tragedy, his sister Mel dying after being struck by a motorcycle while walking home from a party in Melbourne early in 2009.
But as early as 2010, then Eagles assistant Scott Burns was asked by a fellow footy writer what sort of player Shuey was likely to be and Burns told him he was likely to become the best player at the club. He won the Norm Smith Medal for his role in West Coast’s 2018 grand final win over Collingwood.
Many at West Coast rate his 34 disposals that day – which included 19 in contests, eight tackles, eight inside fifties, nine clearances and a goal – alongside Peter Matera’s remarkable five goal haul off a wing in the 1992 decider as the best performances by any Eagle in any of the club’s seven grand finals.
Little more than 12 months after the 2018 flag the Eagles opted to replace premiership skipper Shannon Hurn with Shuey. Hurn had just turned 32. There was a feeling that if Shuey was going to lead the club – and many thought he should – it was then or never with him set to turn 30 in his first season in the role.
When you look for reasons for West Coast’s strange and seemingly premature slide down the AFL ladder, it is worth noting that the two midfield prime-movers who account for all four of the club champion awards between 2016 and 2019 are Shuey and Yeo.
Shuey has missed 25 of his club’s last 62 games.
Yeo has missed 35.
The Eagles regard backing Shuey’s leadership qualities as a sure thing. Backing his 32-year-old body in will be the punt they take if, as expected, he continues as skipper.
