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AFL: Interview with West Coast coach John Worsfold

Roar Guru
1st September, 2013
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Roar Guru
1st September, 2013
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In the eyes of many before the start of the 2013 AFL season, the West Coast Eagles were a shoe-in for a top-four finish and a strong chance to finish top-two and challenge for a premiership.

A preliminary final in 2011 and semi-final in 2012 seemed to point towards the beginning of a new golden age for a club that had already tasted much success in its short history.

Skip to the present and the Eagles have had a year to forget, finishing well below those expectations outside of finals contention and a shadow of the side that thrilled fans during the past two seasons.

Injuries to key players have not helped, but growing criticism of the attitude of the group and the ability of coach John Worsfold to get the best out of them began to fuel speculation that this would may be his last year as in charge.

I spoke to Worsfold before the Eagles last game of the season against Adelaide at Patersons Stadium and asked him about his coaching career to date, 2013 and his plans beyond.

Were you prepared for how time consuming the role of head coach of an AFL club would be when you took it on?
I think I was. I’d always been busy because I’d studied when I first started playing, so I was going flat out. Then I bought in and help set up a pharmacy in 1994, so I was pretty busy even while I was playing.

So it wasn’t like I was playing and nothing else was going on, I was always busy so when I finished the fact that it became busy and it was all football wasn’t really a shock at all.

In season, it’s never ending. You don’t get to Friday afternoon and think ‘that week’s gone’ – it’s just hotting up for us.

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You might have a Sunday afternoon game and you finish exhausted, but you know you’ve got to get up at 7.30am the next morning and you’re back into it, reviewing to get that game out the way and planning for the next one.

Do you feel the burden of scrutiny from the public and the media from being the figurehead of the club?
I know it’s there, but I also don’t know anything different because I’ve sort of grown with it.

There was nowhere near the scrutiny (on me) when I started, it was all Ross Glendinning and Phil Narkle and those guys, but the next year when I started playing more regularly I started being noticed more, but I still thought of myself as a university student playing footy.

Probably about four or five years in when I became captain, then I became that West Coast Eagles figure.

What’s the hardest off-field issue you’ve had to deal with as a coach?
Working with Ben Cousins was unbelievably tough because it was an intensely private issue he had to deal with. People wanted to know what was going on.

We had responsibilities within the footy club to make decisions and we couldn’t think that we were going to put something out there that’s not true and it was going to wash.

I thought it would have been better off getting on the front foot and admitting “I’ve got a problem and I’ve got to deal with it”.

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His mentality was ‘I’ll do what I’ve got to do to get on top of it, but I want to keep playing footy and we don’t have to tell anyone’.

I couldn’t see how that was going to function because as he got into a worse situation, he wasn’t going to be able to be part of our group. He wasn’t going to be able to function within a footy club.

When did you realise he couldn’t deal with it?
The end of the 2006 season, around Christmas time, I started to get a better insight into what it was doing to him and how he wasn’t dealing with it.

That was through conversations with him. It was tough because people can have an opinion from outside without understanding how much passion and effort went into trying to help him, with the number-one focus being his health.

You get accused of putting the footy club first or winning games first and that’s what hurts because people can say that without knowing the steps you’re taking to say to someone ‘give footy away, we’ll support you’.

They don’t know that that happens.

Two players will play their final games for the club against Adelaide in Andrew Embley and Adam Selwood. How would you rate Embley’s contribution to the club and his status within it?
Outstanding. He came in as a young kid, raw as anything. He’s leaving with a beautiful young family, three kids under four years of age, with an interest in a few things outside of footy.

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He’s done really well, got his life into a wonderful position and he’s done that while he’s been slogging away playing 250 games, so it’s a credit to him.

He’s a premiership player, life member, Norm Smith medallist. He’s been magnificent.

What about Adam Selwood?
Adam’s been what we’d call a warrior, but also a highly talented player for us through the midfield, occasionally forward and certainly back.

He started as a backman and when we lost some of our key midfielders, he stepped up in there and really helped us out.

As Scotty Selwood came through and kicked him out, he didn’t flinch and played in that back pocket again and did a really good job for us.

Again, a premiership player and life member, part of the fabric of the club.

Do you think there is room for sentiment in football in regards to allowing players farewell games?
I always say there’s a lot of sentiment in football but it doesn’t have to be displayed by sending someone out to play, you could do someone harm by sending someone out to play if they’re not really ready to play mentally or physically.

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We’re lucky that these two boys that are playing this week are in really good form and one of the reasons they were back in the WAFL was to get their bodies right so that if they were selected, they’d be able to perform at the level that they’ve always been accustomed to and they’ve done that.

Chris Masten has called this season a wasted year for West Coast. Do you agree with those comments? Do you think he is right when he said the players may have believed some of the pre-season hype surrounding the team?
I would hope the players believe the preseason hype. I would hope they don’t start the season thinking we’re no good. I want them to think we’re good. Now there’s a balance.

I think what Chris was saying is ‘everyone told us how good we are, we just turn up and things will happen’.

My experience with elite sportsmen is that doesn’t happen. Maybe the players weren’t prepared for how intense it (this season) was going to be.

Is that preparation mental as well as physical?
To perform at your best in any sport, in any vocation, is mental and physical, absolutely. Football’s no different.

Physically, we had a pretty good preparation (but) maybe we didn’t have the players on that heightened mental alert for what was coming.

There was a lot of talk that we were going to be contenders for this year’s premiership and for a variety of reasons we haven’t delivered anywhere near that.

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Our job is to work out very quickly why that has happened and address those issues.

Can you pinpoint what those issues are?
There are a lot of reasons. Player availability is the key one, but then there’s a myriad of reasons why they’re not available.

We know that’s our big area that we’ve got to look at from diagnosing injuries, treating injuries, staying fit while you’re injured, avoiding injuries – what did we do in the preseason to obtain these injuries?

All that we have to work out what it all means, that’s our job. We’ll spend the time on it. Other people will sit at the pub and say ‘they’ve got too many injuries, they should just train harder’. That’s fine.

Our job is to really get into the minute detail and work it out.

Will you be coaching the West Coast Eagles in 2014?
The club are happy for me to coach on providing, you know… I’ve got to present to them what I’m thinking for next year.

There’s obvious board processes to go through, but right at this moment I’m keen to present a really good plan to the board about what’s gone wrong this year and how we’re going to address it going forward next year and if they’re on the same page as I am, we’ll be away and running.

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If you weren’t to coach next year would you stay in the football industry?
I’m not sure. I don’t feel I’m tied to it. On one hand I feel I’d love to explore a lot of things outside the football industry, but I do love the footy industry.

I wouldn’t feel like I’m leaving it because I’m sick of it, it would only be for the challenge of getting out of my comfort zone.

For the record, the Eagles were thrashed by Adelaide to the tune of 86 points, the third-consecutive game that they have failed to score more than six goals, in what was a disappointing end to a disappointing season.

Two more players have since announced their retirements in Ashton Hams and Brad Dick, joining Embley, Selwood and Mark Nicoski, with possibly more to follow.

Changes are afoot at West Coast – just how far those changes will go, we will have to wait and see.

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