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Matt Priddis’ Brownlow win was the closest West Coast got to a fairy tale last season. How will they fare in 2015?
1. Attack
West Coast finished with both a top-eight defence and attack last year, but the attack let them down in crucial games. The defence was able to hold six of the top eight teams to under 85 points, which is impressive. The problems came forward of centre where they failed to get past 81 in any game against a top-eight team.
These numbers are eerily similar to Fremantle in 2013, which led Fremantle coach Ross Lyon to demand two extra goals a game in 2014. West Coast may need a few more than two goals against the league’s best teams.
With a forward line combination including Josh Kennedy, Jack Darling, Jeremy McGovern, Mark LeCras and Jamie Cripps, the pressure is on the midfield to help shoulder the attacking load.
2. Captain’s call
Shannon Hurn was announced new captain of West Coast late last year in what was regarded internally as a no-brainer. Hurn appears a player who will use the additional responsibility to lift his game. Hurn’s ability to set play up from backward of centre is a strength and one that opposition sides have targeted. Now with the experience to shake opposition attention and the expectation of leading from the front, Hurn could be set for a career-best season.
On the captaincy call, one of the travesties of the past five West Coast seasons has been the ongoing injuries to Beau Waters, which cost the club and probably the AFL from seeing a potentially great captain. It is hard to imagine any other West Coast player touching Waters in terms of leadership and captaincy if he had been fit.
3. Surprise performers
The 2014 John Worsfold Medal threw up some surprises, with young trio Chris Masten, Nic Naitanui and Jamie Cripps placing eight through ten. Masten has started to shake the questions that have plagued his career, Naitanui showed his worth even in an injury-hit season and Cripps was a consistent option in an important role up-forward. On top of this trio Mark Hutchings’ game developed in 2014 and appears on a similar development path to teammate Matt Priddis.
Recruits Elliot Yeo, Jamie Bennell and Xavier Ellis both came to the club and proved to give the Eagles team more run in the defence and midfield. Scott Lycett developed and appears ready to shoulder ruck responsibility.
The question is whether these players can take their respective games to a new level. They are young enough to believe there is still real improvement in this West Coast team.
4. Priddis’ Brownlow back-up
The most polarising winner of a Brownlow medal in 14 years, Priddis’ medal win failed to give him league-wide respect. In a game that is becoming more about advanced statistics, Priddis is a throwback to bygone eras. He is a footballer’s footballer who gets the most out of his body and does all the little things around the contest right.
To look at Priddis strictly from a statistics perspective is the easy way to disregard his achievements, but so much of what Priddis does is not recorded as a statistic and makes him one of the first modern tests of Champion Data and their advanced statistics assessment of players. Statistics can tell us a lot about the game, but there is still something to be said from going out on-field and performing to a high level each week – exactly what Priddis does. He is a testament to what hard work can achieve.
5. Top-eight myth
A lot was made of West Coast failing to beat a team placed in the top eight at year’s end. But this wasn’t really a case of West Coast being uncompetitive with the top teams, more a lack of forward potency, killer punch or clutch player to win a game. They led Port Adelaide, Fremantle and Essendon in the second halves of games before losing tight ones, and were competitive with most of the top eight.
West Coast got a reputation as flat track bullies in 2014 but that tag does not do justice to the strong defensive play they displayed against the top teams. Too much focus was made on who West Coast lost too rather than the why. Expect that why to have been addressed off-season.
6. Step up in class
Benefactors of the first year of the AFL’s pool fixture, West Coast were able to springboard a bottom-six finish in 2013 to almost a finals berth in 2014. That step up the ladder means a step-up in class in 2015, with double-up games against Fremantle, Adelaide, Gold Coast, Western Bulldogs and St Kilda.
The positive of that draw is that only Fremantle was top eight last year. Realistically it could be that the Eagles’ season is decided on the outcome of the two double-up games against other potential finals contenders Gold Coast and Adelaide. Win three or four of those double ups and finals seem a certainty.
7. Second-year wonders
Adam Simpson had one of the toughest jobs of any coach last year as an outsider coming into a club that had just moved on a legend and was renowned for being a boy’s club. Simpson, belying his lack of coaching experience, was coy about respecting what former coach John Worsfold had achieved and the style which he played. Yet Simpson expertly navigated West Coast to a different style over the season.
It is obvious that Simpson comes from a different school of thought to previous West Coast coaches, yet how he respected what the club was while taking them towards his own vision was one of the success stories of 2014.
Now in a second year, the transition is likely to take greater shape. Expect by the end of 2015 this to really be Adam Simpson’s team.
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