West Coast midfield coach Brady Rawlings says the Eagles’ engine room has been working on making its presence felt up forward this pre-season.
While each individual midfielder has areas of their game to improve, Eagles' coaching staff are focused on diversifying the centre collective’s skills in a bid to pressure the scoreboard more in 2016.
“There hasn’t been a change in the game plan, but we’ve always got things we are trying to work on as a team and, in particular, as a midfield,” Rawlings said.
“Being a bit more versatile through the midfield is one thing that we are striving for, like our forwards spending more time through the midfield and our mids being able to spend more time up forward. We want the midfielders to be able to play as a forward and know everything that is required to play as a forward, both in offense and defence.”
Rawlings also provided some insight to the interconnectedness of the squad, suggesting the return of key defenders Eric Mackenzie and Mitch Brown would strengthen the Eagles’ already robust midfield.
The assistant coach reckoned the pair’s absence last year constrained West Coast’s flexibility in attack, as midfield troops were called upon to cover their fallen comrades.
“Getting Mackenzie and Brown back gives a little more flexibility to McGovern and even last year we had to play Yeo back for the first three rounds given we were a little short in defence,” Rawlings said.
“By having those options back we probably get a bit more flexibility through Yeo and McGovern. But also by being a little light on with height in the backline we actually found that our medium-sized defenders can play quite tall, like Sheppard, Wellingham and Hurn.”
While West Coast will undoubtedly benefit from McGovern and Yeo playing more free-range roles, it also has new recruit Lewis Jetta at its disposal, who added more speed and precision to the squad.
Rawlings said the Sydney Swans premiership player’s ability to go forward and back was a huge plus for the team.
“His ball use has stood out at training and he’s fit into our system really well,” he said.
“The boys really like having him around. He’s a bit of fun, but once he’s out on the track he’s very serious about his business as well.”
The Eagles are also eagerly awaiting the arrival of a fit Jack Redden on the training track.
Coaching staff say the former Brisbane Lion is not far from leaving behind the rigours of rehabilitation squad following a second bout of surgery on his troublesome adductor last month.
“Over the last two weeks Jack has seen some noticeable changes in his body and with Dom Sheed out as well they have been able to train pretty hard together in the rehab group,” Rawlings said.
“It’s all about education for Reddo at the moment; he’s learning how we play and that’s the priority.”
Rawlings also sang the praises of West Coast’s 2015 draftees, Luke Partington, Kurt Mutimer, Tom Cole, Matthew Allen and Jordan Snadden.
He said the quintuplet had shown maturity beyond their youth and impressed with their ability to handle senior training loads.
“They have been able to gain some respect from their teammates by getting out and training hard,” Rawlings said.
“They have fit in quite well in terms of our main training sessions, weights and the whole new lifestyle of being a professional footballer. They are going really well and we are looking forward to seeing how they go once the intra-club matches start.”
