Mega Thread WCE: When is the first win? How do we fix this mess? Can we see any improvement at all?

[dinnaz]

Richmond at home

 

[Shuestar13]

You're an absolute moron.

I had to show content so as to see what brought about this comment.

My goodness. It’s hard to split about a dozen odd for our worst (poster), but that one is right up there.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

 

[Broken_Chairs]

We'll win the next 15, lock it in

 

[Deplorable trumpster]

If things continue as they are and the AFL say no to a PP package then Pyke better stick up for the club and publicly take a flame thrower to the AFL and tell them how corrupt they are how biased and rigged for Victorian clubs the competition is. No more copping it on the chin and venting behind closed doors in order to not burn the relationship with the AFL. They do nothing for the clubs or the sport in WA. We have nothing to lose. And at some point for your own dignity you need to stand up for yourself. If there is a basis for challenging the soft cap in court we could threaten it. I am not a lawyer but i am not sure how the AFL can legally forbid independent companies with hiring whoever they want and however many people they want or tax them for it. If it is one of those things where it only works by having all clubs agree to not challenge it then we should challenge it.

 

[CursoryMercenary]

We will surely get a Priority Pick. We've been uncompetitive now since 2022, that's four seasons. We probably won't get as much compensation as North did but we still deserve something. (Even though I'm against the practice of Priority Picks).

That'll leave us with Pick 1, Pick 4 (for Allen) Pick 18 (Hawthorn's first pick as Premiers for example) Pick 19 (P.P) than pick 20 (Start of second Round). That's a good start. If worst case scenario we lose Reid in a trade we could get two further top picks this year and maybe two the following.

 

[Free Agent]

The West Coast Eagles has just appointed you as our coach.
With our list what do you do for the short term and how do you make us competitive.

 

[Boohemian]

 

[Spongeycircles]

Defence defence defence defence defence.

 

[ioppolo]

I think problems run deeper than the list at this stage.

Like Mini, I'd be on a hiding to nothing. Play the seniors? Pfft, they're the worst for form and longevity right now. Play the kids? You're obviously gonna get smashed everywhere.

 

[Ruben Grubarb]

We will surely get a Priority Pick. We've been uncompetitive now since 2022, that's four seasons. We probably won't get as much compensation as North did but we still deserve something. (Even though I'm against the practice of Priority Picks).

That'll leave us with Pick 1, Pick 4 (for Allen) Pick 18 (Hawthorn's first pick as Premiers for example) Pick 19 (P.P) than pick 20 (Start of second Round). That's a good start. If worst case scenario we lose Reid in a trade we could get two further top picks this year and maybe two the following.

Why pick #4? Academy? Uwland etc? It's still pick 2, because all discussions here ignore Academy and F/S players. It might end up pick 4, but for discussion wise, it's pick 2.

 

[The Unforgiven]

I come in peace.

I watched yesterday's game and like many non-Eagles supporters I speak with, it's no longer funny and is actually quite sad where this proud club has ended up. It's terrible for the competition and the AFL must be deeply concerned.

What is more concerning as well is that the draft is about to be compromised for the next few years with the impending inclusion of a Tasmanian team. The outlook appears really, really bleak, with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel.

I don't really know any Eagles supporters to get a perspective from, but what are the main reasons for why the club has fallen so hard?

For mine, it seems like Covid absolutely ruined your list. Decimated it. I remember when you could barely put an AFL side together, and the WAFL side was comprised of almost completely non-AFL listed players.

After Covid, it seemed like the rot just set in. Combined with very poor list management decisions. Honouring Tim Kelly

11

Tim Kelly

Age

31

Ht

184cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

23.6

5star

K

13.5

5star

HB

10.1

5star

M

3.4

3star

T

4.0

5star

CL

4.9

5star

D

19.9

5star

K

12.3

5star

HB

7.6

4star

M

3.1

3star

T

4.7

5star

CL

3.6

4star

D

21.6

5star

K

10.4

4star

HB

11.2

5star

M

2.8

3star

T

3.8

5star

CL

3.8

5star

's wish to return home and rigid demand to only play for West Coast by placating my club's demands was, in hindsight, a terrible decision.

What I struggle to understand is how a core group of senior players, premiership players, have just sunk so low into mediocrity. Where did it go wrong? How much of this is truly on Simmo? Anything else?

As a keen football observer, I'd love to understand more from the fans, what you guys think needs to happen. I'm glad this thread was created. One club always has to finish last, but West Coast's time down the bottom has been far too long.

 

[Priddis Is Done]

The answer.

Time and lots of it.

And no shortcuts and quick sugar fixes.

 

[thegcat]

The Tim Kelly

11

Tim Kelly

Age

31

Ht

184cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

23.6

5star

K

13.5

5star

HB

10.1

5star

M

3.4

3star

T

4.0

5star

CL

4.9

5star

D

19.9

5star

K

12.3

5star

HB

7.6

4star

M

3.1

3star

T

4.7

5star

CL

3.6

4star

D

21.6

5star

K

10.4

4star

HB

11.2

5star

M

2.8

3star

T

3.8

5star

CL

3.8

5star

trade destroyed the fabric of the club and set it back 10 years.

 

[bradee]

The immediate focus has to be the midfield.

Specifically positioning and set-ups.Im tired of seeing opposition , every single week,. just walk it out of the middle with ease,and pump it long ,putting our back under pressure.

It's not the only issue we have,but I reckon it costs us around 6 goals every game.

As for other issues, senior players out of form and lazy,just collecting pay cheques, poor recruiting(although since the pieman left,it's got better under Massey)lack of games being pumped into youngsters,because Simpson stuck with his credits crew..

Bottom line, must fix the ease of opposition winning the midfield battle.

 

[mad_eagle]

What is more concerning as well is that the draft is about to be compromised for the next few years with the impending inclusion of a Tasmanian team. The outlook appears really, really bleak, with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel.

Absolutely doesn’t help when you start the draft process with pick 1 & 19, but actually end up with pick 1 & 30 when it’s all said & done.

 

[Godfather32]

What I struggle to understand is how a core group of senior players, premiership players, have just sunk so low into mediocrity. Where did it go wrong? How much of this is truly on Simmo? Anything else?

As a keen football observer, I'd love to understand more from the fans, what you guys think needs to happen. I'm glad this thread was created. One club always has to finish last, but West Coast's time down the bottom has been far too long.

There's so many factors that go into it but to me the biggest thing is our absolute refusal to draft and develop any genuine ball winners for 10 or so years.
For a long time our game plan largely relied on two things to win the ball, a game plan centered around intercept marking (Gov, Barrass etc etc) and Nic Nat papering over the cracks in our midfield. Now we can't rely on either of those things and we have virtually no one who can win their own ball in the middle, because until the last couple of years we haven't drafted anyone who can.
You can throw in a mix of heartless and/or crap senior players, horrible list management, a poor club culture that's developed since 2019, poor senior leadership on the administration side of things etc etc but at this point we're starting with a list in as bad a shape as the expansion teams without the leg up from the AFL.

 

[Jumpoff Joey]

At home - Melbourne, North and Richmond. Essendon are flogs but we are just that bad.

Away - Richmond.

 

[Balls In]

The draft, salary cap, soft cap and free agency doesn't allow a rebuild from this far back. There's too many teams in AFL and nowhere near enough good players to go round.

Our administration caused this by letting an entire generation of senior players collapse en mass with zero succession planning in place, but the AFL created this possibility with its aggressive equalisation rules that impacts us more than just about any other club.

Now they needs to decide if they are ok with the devastating impact their rules will be having on grass roots footy in WA and if it's ok with the decimation of the recently marquee team in Australian sport. Eventually the chickens will come home to roost as the cash cow dies and the volume of talent in WA starts to dry up.

 

[Patron]

The reason we are where we are is because over the course of a decade 2011-2020 we systematically traded out of the top end of the draft in preference for the following two strategies:

• Trading in targeted role players from clubs (paying mixed amounts of draft capital to do so)
• Trying to make up for our lack of draft capital due to the above strategy and relative success by trading back in the draft to use a "scattergun" approach.

The first strategy had some success, with players like yeo, redden and cripps, contributing to a premiership, but on the whole was more unsuccessful than successful and robbed our future for what then, was the now.

The second strategy was an abysmal failure. With horrible talent identification meaning we burnt a number of picks and brought in basically no long term players in repeated drafts. This is disgusting to look at - Duggan is our only First rounder playing from the last decade.

Draft Year	Traded In	Used	Burnt Picks	Playing Now	First Rounders Taken
2011​	Hill	49​	Newman (23), Mcinnes (28)	None	Newman (23)
2012​	Wellingham, Cripps, Morton	18, list spot	Colledge (45), Carter (59)	Cripps (good trade)	None
2013​	Yeo, Ellis	none	Karpany (31), Main (49)	Yeo (good trade)	Sheed (11)
2014​	None	None	Lamb (32), Nelson (51), Cavka (66), Waterman (76)	Duggan (pick 11)	Duggan (11)
2015​	Giles, Jetta, Redden	17​	Partington (28), Mutimer (57), Allen (62)	Cole	None
2016​	Mitchell, Vardy, Petrie	Spots	Venables (13), Rotham (37)	Waterman	Venables (13)
2017​	Ah Chee	F3	Brander (13), Ainsworth (32), Brayshaw (68)	Allen, Ryan, Petch	Brander (13)
2018​	Hickey	39​	Oneill (28), Foley (31), Cameron (39)	Williams, Edwards	None
2019​	Kelly	(pick 2 equiv)	Jamieson (49), Johnson (58)	Jamieson, Kelly	None
2020​	Langdon, Witherden	54, F4, 56	Edwards (52), Winder (57)	None	None

With such a gaping hole on our list I don't really see the talent to win games this year. Maybe Melbourne in Round 8 at home is a chance. Honestly other than that, I don't think we beat anyone but Richmond this year, we have two shots at that so we should get them once. We will win a game somehow.

In terms of fixing the list I think you have no choice but to hit the draft incredibly hard (trading in any capital 27yo+) and as a secondary focus, trade in any quality talent you can under 24. Inevitably through the passage of time you will time out your list issue. This will take close to 5 years. We are probably 2-3 years through but unfortunately we still haven't really faced reality trading for baker last year. Baker really is the type of thing we've done for the last decade, trade in senior average talent and try to offset using a scattergun approach.

 

[DorothyG]

. There's too many teams in AFL not enough good players to go round.

I was pondering this point yesterday afternoon.

More than half our list isn't AFL standard. We have only probably a handful of players that would be walk up starters in other teams.

Yet the AFL want to add another team?!

You need to find another what 40 odd players, or basically take 2 from every club, and we have to replace them with what, to WAFL hard workers.

Just doesn't make sense

 

[Wooshaaaa]

Here's the stat.

"The lowest contested possession for a game since that stat has been recorded."

Now remember what is a contested possession?

Loose ball get - is interesting
Hard ball get - Yeo Cripps green
Free kick - look at the rucks
Contested mark - again rucks
Ruck hard ball get. -Again!
Contested knock on - bont
Gather from hitout

Are contested possessions a 'key indicator of success' or just a 'fancy term' in the AFL?

The contested possession has increasingly gained prominence in recent years, but there is much debate in the AFL world about its value.

www.abc.net.au

Hard ball gets is the one stat out of all of them IMO is the one to rule them all. Yeo and Yeo types. Blues would be nowhere without Cripps. From without seeing. Sums without rowell.

So we need a better ruckman.

Loose ball gets dominated by elite outside runners.


These should be our priorities in both finding who on our list has these capabilities and for trading at years end

 

[Rowan18]

I come in peace.

I watched yesterday's game and like many non-Eagles supporters I speak with, it's no longer funny and is actually quite sad where this proud club has ended up. It's terrible for the competition and the AFL must be deeply concerned.

What is more concerning as well is that the draft is about to be compromised for the next few years with the impending inclusion of a Tasmanian team. The outlook appears really, really bleak, with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel.

I don't really know any Eagles supporters to get a perspective from, but what are the main reasons for why the club has fallen so hard?

For mine, it seems like Covid absolutely ruined your list. Decimated it. I remember when you could barely put an AFL side together, and the WAFL side was comprised of almost completely non-AFL listed players.

After Covid, it seemed like the rot just set in. Combined with very poor list management decisions. Honouring Tim Kelly's wish to return home and rigid demand to only play for West Coast by placating my club's demands was, in hindsight, a terrible decision.

What I struggle to understand is how a core group of senior players, premiership players, have just sunk so low into mediocrity. Where did it go wrong? How much of this is truly on Simmo? Anything else?

As a keen football observer, I'd love to understand more from the fans, what you guys think needs to happen. I'm glad this thread was created. One club always has to finish last, but West Coast's time down the bottom has been far too long.

A few of the main things:
-rule changes (stand 666) rendered our ganeplan obsolete but we'd already drafted a squad to play that way, so we're caught short
-the destruction of the draft through FA, academies etc, meant we couldn't get enough talent in while we were up and successful
-the brutal travel schedule of a WA team combined with a faster and faster game (see 666 and stand rules) meant bodies broke down. We don't have the luxury that Vic teams have of nursing players to 35.

 

[DorothyG]

Also while I'm at it, I think we really need a national u21s comp and raise the draft age to 21.

It kinda blows me away that the primer sport comp in the country is still considered and accepted as a development comp by all involved.

We shouldn't be "playing the kids" in the AFL. We should only be playing those hardened and ready. Could you imagine the uproar if an NFL or EPL team come out and declared they are rebuilding and will be playing the kids and will be noncompetitive for the next couple seasons.
It would stand with anyone.

The u21s comp would enable new players to come in basically AFL ready with the additional 3 years of development in a high performance environment, and would also weed out those that aren't going to make it, taking alot of the guessing game out of the draft.

Not going to happen, but something I would like to see.

 

[Rowan18]

The Tim Kelly trade destroyed the fabric of the club and set it back 10 years.

Go look at the absolute spuds that were drafted with the picks we gave up. Odds are none will be on an AFL list by end of the year. Tim Kelly was not the problem.