Can West Coast go one better in 2016, or was 2015 a fluke?

A lot has been said about the West Coast Eagles’ stunning surge up the ladder last season, which culminated in them reaching the AFL grand final.

During last year’s off-season, they lost their best defender, and reigning best-and-fairest, Eric Mackenzie, for the season with a knee injury, while early in the season they lost another defender, Mitch Brown, for the season, also with a knee injury.

And after the Eagles finished ninth on the ladder, just a place out of the AFL finals, in their first season under coach Adam Simpson in 2014, no one gave them any hope of contending in season 2015.

The club had developed a reputation for being ‘flat-track bullies’, often beating down on the AFL’s minnows such as Melbourne and GWS, yet failing to beat the teams that finished above them on the ladder.

It came to a head early last season when they scored huge wins over Carlton, the Brisbane Lions and GWS Giants within the first five rounds, with Josh Kennedy kicking 19 goals across those three matches, including ten against his old club Carlton on the Friday night stage in Round 2.

The Blues, Lions and Giants had finished 13th, 15th and 16th respectively in 2014.

After five rounds, the Eagles sat fifth on the ladder, but still, no one expected them to be contending for the finals given the injuries they had suffered and the ineptitude of the teams they faced so early in the season – the Lions and Blues eventually finished in the bottom two, while the Giants finished 11th.

From there, however, Adam Simpson’s team would only get better and better. They upset the highly-fancied Port Adelaide by ten points at the Adelaide Oval in Round 6 but then reverted to their bullying habits when they thrashed the Gold Coast Suns by 92 points at home in Round 7, having led by over 100 points at three-quarter-time.

Eventually, the Eagles would finish second, only behind local rivals Fremantle, making for a WA one-two at the top of the ladder. The eventual finalists they would defeat for the remainder of the season were Richmond, the Adelaide Crows, Sydney Swans and Western Bulldogs in Rounds 12, 15, 17 and 21 respectively.

Only the win against the Tigers was away from their Domain Stadium cauldron, at the MCG, in what was their only match at the ground for the regular season.

Instrumental to the Eagles’ rise up the ladder was the form of who I consider to be their four most important players: reigning Brownlow Medallist Matt Priddis, ruckman Nic Naitanui, eventual Coleman Medallist Josh Kennedy and emerging defender Jeremy McGovern.

In particular, Naitanui’s absence due to the sudden death of his mother was telling as the Eagles lost to Hawthorn at home by just 14 points late in the regular season, before they breathed life into the race for the minor premiership when they defeated Fremantle by 24 points in the biggest Western Derby ever the following week.

The Eagles then turned the tables on the Hawks in the first qualifying final, winning by 32 points at Domain Stadium. The impressive fashion in which they did it saw them installed as flag favourites ahead of the Hawks and the Dockers.

That earned them the week off, after which they defeated North Melbourne by 25 points in their preliminary final to earn themselves a return date with the Hawks, this time at the MCG, in their first grand final since 2006.

From the team that took to the field on the first Saturday of last October, only two players from the Eagles line-up had tasted premiership success: Sam Butler was their only survivor from 2006, when they defeated the Sydney Swans in one of the classics, while Xavier Ellis featured in Hawthorn’s 2008 premiership side.

This inexperience, as opposed to a Hawthorn side for whom most (if not all) had tasted premiership success at least once, proved to be the telling story as the Eagles then went down by 46 points in the biggest match of all.

Having dominated the regular season en route to claiming the Coleman Medal, Josh Kennedy endured the worst match of his life, being kept goalless in the decider by Hawks defender James Frawley, while Jack Darling dropped an open chest mark which would have seen him kick for goal in the third quarter.

Many have since said that the Eagles were embarrassed on the big stage, but those in the inner sanctum of the club would argue otherwise, saying that the grand final defeat would only serve as a lesson going forward.

Since then, the club has been active during the off-season, landing Jack Redden and Lewis Jetta from the Brisbane Lions and Sydney Swans respectively.

Jetta’s return home to Perth could prove the Eagles with the x-factor that they sorely lacked in last year’s decider. No AFL fan will ever forget his stunning dash-off against Cyril Rioli down the Great Southern Wing in the 2012 grand final.

It will also remain to be seen how he is met by the Eagles fans, after he performed a war dance in defence of the now-retired Adam Goodes for the Swans against his new club at Domain Stadium in Round 17 last year.

The Eagles’ 2016 AFL fixture has seen them rewarded with some home blockbusters against Richmond, Collingwood, Essendon and Hawthorn, while they will travel to the SCG to face the Swans there for the first time since 2010.

Their season will start with a home game against the Brisbane Lions on Sunday, March 27. The flat-track bullies taunts could be revived again by then, as the Lions finished second-last, only ahead of Carlton, on the ladder last year.

The arrivals of Redden and Jetta, as well as the imminent returns of Eric Mackenzie and Mitch Brown from their long-term injuries, should see the West Coast Eagles continue to contend again in 2016.

Whether they can go one better and capture their first premiership flag since 2006, or whether their run to last year’s AFL grand final was a fluke, will remain to be seen.