Miguel Sanchez
(Unique injury) TBC
So the bye is here, and after three straight losses that have left us precariously placed in 7th spot it's a perfect time for a pause, a rethink and a reset.
The breakdown
With a 6-5 record and a percentage just a smidge above 100, West Coast has been the very definition of a middle-of-the-road team. Despite having a potent forward line on paper, our offensive output of 89.4 points a game is just 10th in the league. The backline has fared a little better, letting in just 88 points per game (7th in the league) despite the team giving up on average the 6th-most inside 50s in the league. A feature in a lot of the side's wins has been the defence holding up under the weight of an avalanche of opposition forward thrusts - think Port Adelaide and St Kilda especially.
As much as we hate the "flat-track bully" tag the team's form away from Subiaco has been undeniably bad, with just two away wins coming so far and some bad losses occurring against some strugglers of the competition. However, you'd expect a flat-track bully to turn in some big home wins. That hasn't happened so far - the team's biggest win (by just 43 points) came against North Melbourne at Etihad and the biggest win at Subi (not counting the 41-point victory over co-tenant Fremantle) was just 26 points against Sydney.
The good
With the Eagles' traveling woes very much at the forefront of media coverage as they headed to Adelaide Oval in round 7, everyone expected them to turn their toes up and surrender meekly to a Port side that was sitting in fifth spot and sporting a hefty percentage. What nobody expected was the visitors to hold a narrow lead for much of the first half (thanks in part to some inaccurate goalkicking by the Power) before breaking the game open with a 10-minute burst to start the third team that netted four unanswered goals and a game-high 33-point lead. From there it was going to be difficult for Port to come back, and although they gave it a red-hot crack with a couple of big forwards in Ryder and Dixon dominating the air, they could only get the margin back to 7 before the siren sounded and West Coast could head to the airport with the points in the bag.
The bad
Hawthorn were looking less than a shadow of their once-great selves, winless and bottom of the ladder heading into Round 5, and it appeared to be the perfect opportunity for the Eagles to all at once break their MCG hoodoo, finally take revenge for the 2015 Grand Final and announce themselves as a serious contender in 2017. Instead what occurred was a little bit of history repeating, with the ghosts of 2015 (and the early-2016 rematch) seemingly spooking the Eagles' players into complete inaction. The Hawks ran rings around them, extending their lead at every change and leaving West Coast with some serious questions to be addressed.
The ugly
While the team wouldn't have the chance to atone for that Hawthorn loss before September, they could maybe dampen down the "can't play in Melbourne" talk with a strong showing against a struggling Essendon side in round 9. After all, the Eagles' recent Etihad record was pretty reasonable, especially compared with its form across town at the 'G, and the Bombers were sitting outside the top eight. The stage was set for another resounding statement, right? Wrong! Essendon blew West Coast away in the first half including a seven-goal second term (just one less goal than we managed for the entire match) and smashed us in contested possessions and clearances.
The star
Elliot Yeo could sit out the second half of the season and still go close to winning the John Worsfold Medal, such has been the magnitude of his performances to date. It's rumoured that staunchly heterosexual men are petitioning the Government to legalise same-sex marriage just so they have a chance of wedding him. After being used all over the ground last year and suffering from a lack of consistency as a result, Yeoy has been used almost exclusively as a rebounding defender this season and has starred, averaging a career-high 25 touches a game and leading the team in marks (even ahead of intercept marker extraordinaire Jeremy McGovern), Swung forward against Gold Coast in the absence of Josh Kennedy, Yeo kicked a team-high three goals. His form has him locked into a half-back spot in every published All-Australian team and a solitary vote off the lead in the Coaches Association's MVP award.
A walking talking advertisement for same sex marriage
The quiet achiever
He's probably not quite reached the form of his past couple of seasons but Brad Sheppard has once again been a very solid presence in the backline. He received plaudits for his splendid shutdown job on Robbie Gray in the win over Port Adelaide, reportedly arriving in Adelaide two days early and spending the entire week attached to Gray like an oil slick on a penguin. Other than that Shepp has rarely featured in the reports but has gone about his job with a minimum of fuss.
The recruits
In the last offseason West Coast recruited a couple of old-age pensioners and a ruckman with the body of an old-age pensioner, thinking that they could all be useful parts of a premiership push. While the premiership push is now looking decidedly unlikely, it's through no fault of the new recruits who have all largely played their part. Sam Mitchell has brought the sort of nous and decision-making skills he was known for at Hawthorn and has managed to play every game except, coincidentally, the game against Hawthorn. Nathan Vardy's crepe-paper body has held up well despite him being thrown into the unfamiliar role of leading ruckman, and although he's no All-Australian candidate he's at least competing well against All-Australian candidates while we await the return of The Messiah Nic Naitanui and The Under-Messiah Scott Lycett, one of whom will surely lead us to the promised land. Drew Petrie broke his hand roughly 17 seconds into his club debut but he played out that game, and has now returned to offer a chop-out to Vardy as well as some of the biggest efforts seen from a 34 year old outside of Margaret River during Leavers Week.
The great unknowns
Aside from the Dads Army trio above, West Coast has debuted just one player this year - Kurt Mutimer, who showed enough in four games to suggest a future at AFL level. With the season on the slide fans are hanging out for a glimpse of some more promising youngsters, including Willie Rioli, Daniel "Luke Shuey's Twin" Venables and the find of the JLT Community Series, Franky Watson. Will we see any of these guys before the season peters out? That probably depends on their form, plus whether the current side can arrest their downward slide and, if not, whether the MC has the stones to make some big calls.
The best player we've never seen.
The big calls
With the oldest list in the league (probably? I didn't check to be honest but it sounds right) there's plenty of players who are closer to the end of their careers than the beginning, and for some of them it seems to be approaching at an alarming speed. Mark LeCras is still struggling to impact games, particularly away from Subiaco, despite playing back in the permanent forward role which saw him named as an All-Australian and Club Champion just seven short years ago. He's gone goalless in the past three weeks and is out of contract at the end of the year. Also out of contract is the workhorse Matty Priddis, whose output has declined significantly this year thanks at least partly to the arrival of Mitchell, who is a similar player only much more skilful, and that lowered output has made his deficiencies (ball use, speed, inability to play another position) just that much more obvious. Of course no-one has ever suggested his place in the team should be questioned before now, at least as far as I'm aware, but he's definitely starting to cause the match committee headaches. As will be a few other underperformers including Jack Darling and Josh Hill, and some other out-of-contract veterans like Sam Butler and Eric MacKenzie who may well be playing for their AFL careers in the second half of the year.
The least controversial player we've ever had.
The questions
Can the Eagles somehow find the spark that has, apart from three glorious weeks at the end of the last home and away season, completely eluded them since their surprise 2015 Grand Final run? If they can't, will we see a complete dismantling of the team? Are we witnessing the end of LeCras, Priddis, Butler? Can Lewis Jetta maintain the form he's shown in the past fortnight and finally justify the club's decision to recruit him? Will NicNat take the field at all this year? Should he bother? Should any of us bother now that nuclear Armageddon is as inevitable as Andrew Gaff trying to get onto his left foot? If he does come back, along with Lycett, then what do we do with all those extra ruckmen we recruited? Did Chris Waterman break a mirror over a black cat, leading to horrible luck for his offspring? If Tom Lamb faces east and no-one is there to see it, is he still leaving? Would the owner of a white Toyota Camry registration 1BDC 924 please move it as you are blocking a handicapped bay?
Facing east. Gawn.
The run home
The good news is the 7 of the remaining 11 games are at Fortress Subiaco, including four of the next five. The bad news is that the vast majority of those aren't going to be easy, including the Cats first up after the bye and both SA sides coming later in the season, as well as the derby. In addition, we've got away games against the Giants, Bulldogs, an improving St Kilda and bogey team Collingwood who we've only beaten once in Melbourne since the capture of Saddam Hussein.
The crystal ball
In an even season 13 wins is probably going to be needed to guarantee a finals spot. That means winning every home game, or otherwise jagging an away win against the Saints or Pies. 12 wins puts us at the mercy of the footy gods (St Kilda missed out on finals last year with 12 wins). To earn a home final the team would have to win at least eight games in the back half of the year which looks unlikely unless there's some significant removing of digits from posteriors taking place over the bye week. The most likely outcome is looking like either just missing finals, or scraping into the final eight and facing a difficult away elimination final. Neither result would have been considered a pass mark at the start of the season, and both represent the sort of "middle ground" position that teams are generally desperate to avoid (just look at Ninthmond as an example of why you don't want to be stuck in that part of the ladder). So a significant amount of work is needed to salvage something meaningful out of this season. But you probably knew that prior to reading this. So what was the point?
The breakdown
With a 6-5 record and a percentage just a smidge above 100, West Coast has been the very definition of a middle-of-the-road team. Despite having a potent forward line on paper, our offensive output of 89.4 points a game is just 10th in the league. The backline has fared a little better, letting in just 88 points per game (7th in the league) despite the team giving up on average the 6th-most inside 50s in the league. A feature in a lot of the side's wins has been the defence holding up under the weight of an avalanche of opposition forward thrusts - think Port Adelaide and St Kilda especially.
As much as we hate the "flat-track bully" tag the team's form away from Subiaco has been undeniably bad, with just two away wins coming so far and some bad losses occurring against some strugglers of the competition. However, you'd expect a flat-track bully to turn in some big home wins. That hasn't happened so far - the team's biggest win (by just 43 points) came against North Melbourne at Etihad and the biggest win at Subi (not counting the 41-point victory over co-tenant Fremantle) was just 26 points against Sydney.
The good
With the Eagles' traveling woes very much at the forefront of media coverage as they headed to Adelaide Oval in round 7, everyone expected them to turn their toes up and surrender meekly to a Port side that was sitting in fifth spot and sporting a hefty percentage. What nobody expected was the visitors to hold a narrow lead for much of the first half (thanks in part to some inaccurate goalkicking by the Power) before breaking the game open with a 10-minute burst to start the third team that netted four unanswered goals and a game-high 33-point lead. From there it was going to be difficult for Port to come back, and although they gave it a red-hot crack with a couple of big forwards in Ryder and Dixon dominating the air, they could only get the margin back to 7 before the siren sounded and West Coast could head to the airport with the points in the bag.
The bad
Hawthorn were looking less than a shadow of their once-great selves, winless and bottom of the ladder heading into Round 5, and it appeared to be the perfect opportunity for the Eagles to all at once break their MCG hoodoo, finally take revenge for the 2015 Grand Final and announce themselves as a serious contender in 2017. Instead what occurred was a little bit of history repeating, with the ghosts of 2015 (and the early-2016 rematch) seemingly spooking the Eagles' players into complete inaction. The Hawks ran rings around them, extending their lead at every change and leaving West Coast with some serious questions to be addressed.
The ugly
While the team wouldn't have the chance to atone for that Hawthorn loss before September, they could maybe dampen down the "can't play in Melbourne" talk with a strong showing against a struggling Essendon side in round 9. After all, the Eagles' recent Etihad record was pretty reasonable, especially compared with its form across town at the 'G, and the Bombers were sitting outside the top eight. The stage was set for another resounding statement, right? Wrong! Essendon blew West Coast away in the first half including a seven-goal second term (just one less goal than we managed for the entire match) and smashed us in contested possessions and clearances.
The star
Elliot Yeo could sit out the second half of the season and still go close to winning the John Worsfold Medal, such has been the magnitude of his performances to date. It's rumoured that staunchly heterosexual men are petitioning the Government to legalise same-sex marriage just so they have a chance of wedding him. After being used all over the ground last year and suffering from a lack of consistency as a result, Yeoy has been used almost exclusively as a rebounding defender this season and has starred, averaging a career-high 25 touches a game and leading the team in marks (even ahead of intercept marker extraordinaire Jeremy McGovern), Swung forward against Gold Coast in the absence of Josh Kennedy, Yeo kicked a team-high three goals. His form has him locked into a half-back spot in every published All-Australian team and a solitary vote off the lead in the Coaches Association's MVP award.
A walking talking advertisement for same sex marriage
The quiet achiever
He's probably not quite reached the form of his past couple of seasons but Brad Sheppard has once again been a very solid presence in the backline. He received plaudits for his splendid shutdown job on Robbie Gray in the win over Port Adelaide, reportedly arriving in Adelaide two days early and spending the entire week attached to Gray like an oil slick on a penguin. Other than that Shepp has rarely featured in the reports but has gone about his job with a minimum of fuss.
The recruits
In the last offseason West Coast recruited a couple of old-age pensioners and a ruckman with the body of an old-age pensioner, thinking that they could all be useful parts of a premiership push. While the premiership push is now looking decidedly unlikely, it's through no fault of the new recruits who have all largely played their part. Sam Mitchell has brought the sort of nous and decision-making skills he was known for at Hawthorn and has managed to play every game except, coincidentally, the game against Hawthorn. Nathan Vardy's crepe-paper body has held up well despite him being thrown into the unfamiliar role of leading ruckman, and although he's no All-Australian candidate he's at least competing well against All-Australian candidates while we await the return of The Messiah Nic Naitanui and The Under-Messiah Scott Lycett, one of whom will surely lead us to the promised land. Drew Petrie broke his hand roughly 17 seconds into his club debut but he played out that game, and has now returned to offer a chop-out to Vardy as well as some of the biggest efforts seen from a 34 year old outside of Margaret River during Leavers Week.
The great unknowns
Aside from the Dads Army trio above, West Coast has debuted just one player this year - Kurt Mutimer, who showed enough in four games to suggest a future at AFL level. With the season on the slide fans are hanging out for a glimpse of some more promising youngsters, including Willie Rioli, Daniel "Luke Shuey's Twin" Venables and the find of the JLT Community Series, Franky Watson. Will we see any of these guys before the season peters out? That probably depends on their form, plus whether the current side can arrest their downward slide and, if not, whether the MC has the stones to make some big calls.
The best player we've never seen.
The big calls
With the oldest list in the league (probably? I didn't check to be honest but it sounds right) there's plenty of players who are closer to the end of their careers than the beginning, and for some of them it seems to be approaching at an alarming speed. Mark LeCras is still struggling to impact games, particularly away from Subiaco, despite playing back in the permanent forward role which saw him named as an All-Australian and Club Champion just seven short years ago. He's gone goalless in the past three weeks and is out of contract at the end of the year. Also out of contract is the workhorse Matty Priddis, whose output has declined significantly this year thanks at least partly to the arrival of Mitchell, who is a similar player only much more skilful, and that lowered output has made his deficiencies (ball use, speed, inability to play another position) just that much more obvious. Of course no-one has ever suggested his place in the team should be questioned before now, at least as far as I'm aware, but he's definitely starting to cause the match committee headaches. As will be a few other underperformers including Jack Darling and Josh Hill, and some other out-of-contract veterans like Sam Butler and Eric MacKenzie who may well be playing for their AFL careers in the second half of the year.
The least controversial player we've ever had.
The questions
Can the Eagles somehow find the spark that has, apart from three glorious weeks at the end of the last home and away season, completely eluded them since their surprise 2015 Grand Final run? If they can't, will we see a complete dismantling of the team? Are we witnessing the end of LeCras, Priddis, Butler? Can Lewis Jetta maintain the form he's shown in the past fortnight and finally justify the club's decision to recruit him? Will NicNat take the field at all this year? Should he bother? Should any of us bother now that nuclear Armageddon is as inevitable as Andrew Gaff trying to get onto his left foot? If he does come back, along with Lycett, then what do we do with all those extra ruckmen we recruited? Did Chris Waterman break a mirror over a black cat, leading to horrible luck for his offspring? If Tom Lamb faces east and no-one is there to see it, is he still leaving? Would the owner of a white Toyota Camry registration 1BDC 924 please move it as you are blocking a handicapped bay?
Facing east. Gawn.
The run home
The good news is the 7 of the remaining 11 games are at Fortress Subiaco, including four of the next five. The bad news is that the vast majority of those aren't going to be easy, including the Cats first up after the bye and both SA sides coming later in the season, as well as the derby. In addition, we've got away games against the Giants, Bulldogs, an improving St Kilda and bogey team Collingwood who we've only beaten once in Melbourne since the capture of Saddam Hussein.
The crystal ball
In an even season 13 wins is probably going to be needed to guarantee a finals spot. That means winning every home game, or otherwise jagging an away win against the Saints or Pies. 12 wins puts us at the mercy of the footy gods (St Kilda missed out on finals last year with 12 wins). To earn a home final the team would have to win at least eight games in the back half of the year which looks unlikely unless there's some significant removing of digits from posteriors taking place over the bye week. The most likely outcome is looking like either just missing finals, or scraping into the final eight and facing a difficult away elimination final. Neither result would have been considered a pass mark at the start of the season, and both represent the sort of "middle ground" position that teams are generally desperate to avoid (just look at Ninthmond as an example of why you don't want to be stuck in that part of the ladder). So a significant amount of work is needed to salvage something meaningful out of this season. But you probably knew that prior to reading this. So what was the point?
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