What are the West Coast Eagles up to?

The shock retirement of Matthew Priddis hints change is afoot out west, and perhaps not before its time. The West Coast Eagles are pivoting to their most important pieces, and will look to address their most glaring deficiency before it’s too late.

West Coast’s 2017 is still alive. They are back inside the top eight after dispensing with a young Brisbane Lions at home yesterday afternoon. Next weekend, they play St Kilda in what looms as a win or go home encounter for the Victorian side. Once again, the microwave media has gone too hard too soon in writing the Eagles’ season off.

Still, something more medium term in nature is afoot.

Matthew Priddis is a modern football success story. After being overlooked in three national drafts, Priddis made it onto West Coast’s rookie list in their premiership year, and their main list in 2007. From Round 1 2007 to Round 14 2017, Priddis played in 217 of a possible 230 games, helping shepherd the Eagles through the post-Ben Cousins haze, the subsequent rebuild and rise back up to the top of the ladder. He won the 2014 Brownlow medal and came within two votes of winning it again in 2015.

Priddis is a mostly unassuming fellow, which his football epitomises. Found at the bottom of most packs, Priddis relished the things that more flashy footballers find mundane. He is the modern workhorse that all quality midfields are built around. No matter what happens from here, Priddis will retire as one of the club’s most important figures.

On 8 June, Priddis re-signed with the West Coast Eagles to play in 2018. He announced his retirement from AFL football on 28 July, and he will not be playing for West Coast in 2018.

It is an abrupt about face that took everyone bar Priddis and perhaps a handful of club staff by surprise. When the Eagles called a press conference earlier on in the day, everyone assumed it was to announce Sam Mitchell, fellow veteran midfielder, was exercising his option to join the coaching fraternity.

That could still happen next week, albeit the retirement of Priddis reduces the chances of that ever so slightly. Really, there is no compelling football reason for Mitchell to trade sleeveless jumper for club issued polo.

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

What’s going on? When taken as an isolated incident, it is easy to mount an argument that Priddis’ recent run in with injury plus his relatively meek form in the second half of the year conspired to change his and the club’s minds. Priddis has had a lean year in the context of his career, and had been almost a non-factor in West Coast’s post-bye outings.

Still, midfielders that can win 12 contested possessions, have 24 disposals and lay close to eight tackles a game aren’t in abundance (there is one other in 2017: Rory Sloane). And West Coast’s midfield has been unsteady in the season to date. Something else is afoot.

We know this because we take this news in the broader context of where the West Coast Eagles now find themselves in 2017: on the fringe of the top eight with finals still on the cards but without a meaningful shot at the premiership.

I ominously wrote four weeks ago that West Coast’s day of reckoning was approaching, but caveated that with a comforting suffix: they know it. It appears they know it.

Matt Priddis’ surprise retirement is the first move in what looms as a critical three-month stretch for the three-time premiers. West Coast have an opportunity to re-cast their list within the constraints they have built for themselves, and have one final run at a premiership with their most important players in full flight.

To get there, West Coast will gut the top end of its list. While the Eagles have an old list in the aggregate, it is mostly on account of them holding a clutch of players aged in the 25-29 category – rather than the club hosting a 30+-year-old retirement village like the recent experiences at Fremantle, Hawthorn and North Melbourne. Still, the oldest players on the Eagles’ list will be heavily scrutinised.

The last of the 2006 premiership players Sam Butler will surely retire. Veteran Mark LeCras is a delist candidate, albeit he could find a new home as a back-up player if he sees fit. Eric Mackenzie is a restricted free agent and the Eagles could gamble on a compensatory draft pick should a rising club want a plug and play key defender.

Drew Petrie is surely a one time fling. Jonathon Giles hasn’t been sighted since the Eagles upgraded the back-up ruckman spot with Nathan Vardy. Sam Mitchell could go on, but equally could retire.

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

That’s a hefty pruning, which would leave West Coast with a number of list spots to fill and, by virtue of the luxuries afforded by the new Collective Bargaining Agreement in terms of salary cap flexibility this off-season, potential to make a big splash or two in the trade or free agency pool.

In addition to those moves which are in West Coast’s control, I sometimes wake up at night in cold sweats thinking about the fact Andrew Gaff didn’t sign a Luke Shuey-type extension with the Eagles upon the signing of the new CBA. Shuey, who had a contract to the end of 2018, signed a four-year extension in late June. Gaff, whose contract also expires at the end of 2018, has not. Next year, Gaff will be a free agent.

There is no reason to believe Gaff is not going to stay at West Coast. But his name could be on the agenda if the Eagles get deadly serious about building around their two superstars. It could be a mutually beneficial outcome – although Gaff’s decision making, left boot and endurance are all things West Coast hold dear. In a perfect world, he re-ups and stays at West Coast until he’s 35.

What’s on the agenda? The Eagles need speed. West Coast were built to play the game of three years ago, when Hawthorn was chopping up the league with incisive kicking and aerial dominance. The league decided that to counter it, it should bulk up around the ball on the inside and move the ball with run and carry on the outside.

West Coast’s tight-checking zone defence became the default scheme to stop kicking teams, and many coaches wound back the clock a couple of years to lean on the forward press. All of these things were designed to beat Alastair Clarkson’s Hawks; West Coast coach Adam Simpson wanted to bring a little bit of Hawthorn to Perth’s western suburbs.

When the Eagles have won this year it has been with their kicking. They are a pitiful -12.2 in ground ball differential in 2017, and in losses that drops to -20.8 (no top-eight team has a negative differential). It is partly because they get beaten up at the contest, but it is also because the Eagles have very little pace through the middle of the ground.

(AAP Image/Tony McDonough)

It exists on the list, but in small and relatively unknown quantities. Youngsters Tom Cole, Liam Duggan, Jackson Nelson and Daniel Venables are all pacey but need some time to grow. The options elsewhere are few and far between. This is an attribute West Coast will look to buy on the open market.

It’s difficult to name names now, but rest assured West Coast’s list management team will be injecting Red Bull into their eyeballs by the time we reach the start of October. As we saw last year with any number of surprise names being put on the block, there’s no limit to how silly the season can get.

We do know fit will be important. The Eagles have young players – they just haven’t been getting a large share of the available games to play. What the Eagles need is some extra depth in the mid career veteran tier – guys who have six to eight years of experience under their belts who can fill specific gaps. Most importantly, they need to be ready to go now, because West Coast’s two more important players are at the peak of their powers.

Those players are Nic Naitanui and Josh Kennedy – the league’s best ruckman and the league’s best key forward. Everything else is detail. Detail is important, but it’s called detail for a reason.

Naitanui has recently returned from a two-week training regiment in the United States. He was attacking children’s gym equipment like it owed him money.

In all seriousness, Naitanui looked in sparkling form, his knee issues apparently almost behind him. If West Coast had a chance to push for a top-four finish – which they mathematically do but realistically do not – there’s little doubt he’d be back in the side post haste. But as it stands, given his importance, West Coast should not risk him in a borderline season such as this.

Kennedy turns 30 before the end of this season, and other than a niggly calf shows no signs of slowing down with age. His goals per game rate has climbed every year since 2013 (he needs 14 majors in the next four games to keep that streak in tact), and he is stunningly just four goals behind Joe Daniher in this year’s Coleman medal despite missing five games due to injury. Kennedy is an old school leading key forward who does most of his work before he sprints towards the ball carrier.

These are West Coast’s two vital cogs, their heart and soul, and the playing assets who are almost irreplaceable. We have seen that with West Coast’s work at stoppages and in tight falling apart without Naitanui’s presence; West Coast has relied upon Drew freaking Petrie in during Kennedy’s absences in 2017. If the Eagles are going to win a premiership soon, it will be with these two players in their primes.

With the shock of Priddis’ announcement in the rear window, West Coast must not look forward unflinchingly. There is little room for error when you are staring down your own mortality.