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West Coast will revert to a hit-and-run travel schedule for interstate games in a bid to end their demoralising 19-game AFL losing streak on the road.
In a desperate attempt to avoid Sydney’s record 21-straight interstate defeats set between 1992-94, the Eagles will fly out of Perth just 24 hours before Saturday’s clash with the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium, instead of the usual 48 hours.
West Coast coach John Worsfold was hopeful the new routine, which the club will also employ when they face Adelaide at AAMI Stadium in round 21, would help the players perform closer to their peak.
“A change is as good as a holiday,” Worsfold said on Tuesday.
“The last three seasons we’ve travelled two days out so it feels like it’s time to have a look at something different.
“World’s best practice is mixed.
“It says if you go two days out you adapt to the time change better, but the other side of world’s best practice says you should stay in your own environment as long as you can, sleep in your own bed as many nights as possible.
“So one night sleeping in a hotel room, disrupted sleep, is better than two nights.
“I think our high performance staff have read over 130 research papers on travelling and what they’ve come up with is in 1992 we won a premiership travelling the day before games, except for the grand final where we travelled two days before.
“In 2006 we won a premiership travelling two days before.
“If you’re a really good team you’ll win – you can travel a week out.
“We just feel it makes sense to trial that now for where we’re at.
“We don’t want to be trialling things next season if we’re pushing and going a lot better.”
West Coast have been rated as rank $9.50 outsiders by TAB Sportsbet to topple the Bulldogs, who will again be without Robert Murphy, Scott Welsh, Shaun Higgins and Daniel Giansiracusa through injury.
Meanwhile, Worsfold all-but conceded star midfielder Daniel Kerr and four-time All-Australian ruckman Dean Cox wouldn’t play again this season.
Kerr hasn’t played since round 13 and Cox has been out since round 15, with the pair still in the early stages of a specialised training program designed to fix their troubling groin complaints.
With just four rounds remaining, Worsfold said the focus had switched to fixing the injuries for good rather than rushing them back for one or two games.
“We want to get them up ready to play with no soreness,” he said.
“That might take four weeks, that might take eight weeks.
“Even though we are not playing in eight weeks’ time we have to get them to a point to say they are working hard enough to be ready to play and they are not getting any soreness, so we know we’ve fixed the problem.
“When the season finishes we can’t stop them from doing anything and think we’ve fixed the problem – we need to make sure we have.”
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