JUSTIN LANGER: Why West Coast Eagles 2025 team will be enjoying playing with new teammates

Every pre-season we hear athletes say: “That was, without doubt, the toughest pre-season of my life.”

Despite this, everyone in the team is usually happy, relaxed and super-fit as hope and ambition for the new season rises above the nerves of the unknown future.

Fremantle Dockers star Caleb Serong said recently: “It’s been a tough pre-season. They’ve absolutely smashed us. It’s been the hardest one I’ve done in terms of the combination of gym and on-field work.”

Most players say the same thing because they are living in this moment, this present reality.

At the West Coast Eagles season launch last week, everyone was talking the same language.

After a disappointing few years, there is a sense of optimism in the air.

A new coach and chair, a couple of legends in John Worsfold and Shannon Hurn back at the club, and a group of talented, young players giving the more senior ones a spring in their step.

I am sure every AFL club has experienced the same buoyancy in the last week or so.

Before the pressure mounts, they are showing off the work that’s been done until now. Only one team can win the flag, but dreaming about it before reality sets in, is a nice time of the year.

On the stage at the launch, something apart from the present moment struck me.

There I watched 42 players standing in front of 800 Eagles faithful. Veterans stood next to rookies, some smiled and laughed, others looked like shy rabbits in the proverbial spotlights.

This squad was different to this time last year. And the year before that, and all the years spanning the club’s 38-year history. The theme was common of course — in terms of a football squad — but the people in the picture have changed.

What linked today’s reality with times gone by, was a presentation of jumpers to the new recruits. Past players handed over the jersey number they wore to this year’s recipient.

Zac Mainwaring, son of Chris, did the honours for his dad’s playing jumper. A very capable player himself, there was something special about Zac standing on the stage with past teammates of his father.

When we look back on photographs of the past or attend reunions, they remind of us days gone by.

Old school, work, sports or social images provide a souvenir of different times in our lives. Some people in those captured moments turn out to be life-long friends, others not so much.

As an example, the Eagles of 2025 will one day look back at that frozen moment from last week and remember the good, the bad and the ugly, of this period.

Today they will train, play, celebrate, commiserate, mourn, and party together.

Some connections will come easily, a shared passion, a common home-town, an obscure reference that makes two strangers laugh in unison. All may be catalysts of mates for life.

Other relationships in contrast may be forced connections, that don’t quite fit.

In teams, this is common, but for the good of the cause work needs to be done to find common ground. Without that, desired results are almost unobtainable.

Strangely the bonds of this season can also change. A teammate today may be an opponent tomorrow. Such is life.

When this current period fades away, as it will, only memories will remain.

Into the future these players may wonder what happened to so and so, they might brag to their grandkids about having played with that legend, or another, or they may sip on a beer and reminisce happily, or sadly, of their experiences together of triumph or disaster.

Some will have long careers, others won’t, that’s the nature of the business, but right now they are a group that has come together in this chapter of their life.

Do you ever look back on old photos and get curious about where your old friends are right now? Or remember the impact a specific group, or individual, may have had on your life today.

Who will ever forget Forrest Gump’s Mumma saying on her deathbed: “Life is like a box of chocolates Forrest, you never know what you are going to get.”

True as this may be, I think life is as much like a giant jigsaw puzzle as it is a box of chocolates.

During COVID, the jigsaw puzzle became a staple part of the Langer household, as it did in countless others.

Those jigsaw puzzles all began the same way, first as chaos, with hundreds of fragments scattered across the table, some face down, others up, all seemingly unrelated.

Every day through thick and thin, heartbreak and bedlam, laughter and merriment, I remind myself that each experience is simply an individual piece of the puzzle of our lives.

Eventually though, through time, frustration, patience and work, those dispersed, individual pieces come together, forming an appearance, that can be so fulfilling.

Like a single photograph in your life, every piece of a puzzle has a place, even if we can’t see it at this very moment.

In a team, a new member may join, and it is up to them — and you — to see if they enhance the final product.

The key is to find the missing gap and connect it nicely together with other parts of the puzzle.

I look back on photos of myself in primary school and today smile at the life that kid has led.

On my desk at home, there is an electronic photo frame that posts a different one of my favourite images on the minute.

Every now and then, a photo of this 10-year-old kid, with a big gap between his two front teeth stares back at me with a smile on his face. Every time I see it, I look with pride at the life that’s been led.

There have been plenty of ups and downs, good times and bad, but every single experience has made me the person I am today.

Like a jigsaw, we connect moments, people, choices, and circumstances into a picture unique to us — intricate, imperfect, irreplaceable, and wholly our own.

There are the school photos, that remind me of the embarrassing things I said or did. My first crush, my favourite teacher and the bully who I still can’t get out of my mind.

Then there’s the photo of the Warwick Black footy team that I played in as a kid, and that I’ve mentioned before in this column.

Collectively I speak of that group in mythical terms, as the team that won six consecutive grand finals. I could tell a story about every single one of the guys in that photo — and their parents — even though some I haven’t seen in more than 40 years.

From childhood teammates we have gone on to forge our own paths — there’s now a fireman, a cop, a real estate agent, a CEO and a business owner. Some are no longer with us, absent friends.

All are a huge part of my life’s storyline, despite the passage of time.

This week I arrived back in India for the start of another IPL season.

While everything is the same, everything is also so different. New staff, 20 new players compared to the squad we had last year, a different hotel, and a new hope for the upcoming season.

Despite the changes, the beautiful chaos of India remains. The birthday tradition of sharing a cake with their friends and then smothering the birthday boy’s face with that delicious concoction of cream, fruit and sponge is hilariously infectious.

The laughing of the moment is contagious and helps build the bonds within the team. Such celebrations are not something we do at home, but I am so thankful I get to experience such childish foolishness every time someone celebrates a birthday in this country.

In this case, the birthday recipient was one of our support staff. He is one of the nicest, hardest workers you would ever meet, and it was through him that the richness of our lives was enhanced in a single crazy moment, that I will one day look back on with fondness.

Last season we didn’t win the tournament, but I still had a remarkable time. Some in that team photo will remain friends, others may not, but all will provide me with at least one story of that specific time in my life.

Every day through thick and thin, heartbreak and bedlam, laughter and merriment, I remind myself that each experience is simply an individual piece of the puzzle of our lives.