Harley Reid: West Coast Eagles coach Andrew McQualter vows to help better protect young star in second season

New West Coast coach Andrew McQualter has promised to come up with a clear plan to help young star Harley Reid handle the increased attention he will get in his second season, but stressed he must learn to fight his own battles.

Reid had an outstanding debut season after being drafted by the Eagles at pick one. He was voted as the AFL Players’ Association’s Best First Year Player but was ineligible to win the Rising Star award after being suspended during the season.

Reid was also named in the centre for the AFLPA’s 22 Under 22 team, finished ninth in West Coast’ best and fairest and his seven Brownlow Medal votes was more than the combined tally for the rest of his draft class.

The 19-year-old was often targeted by clubs after a blazing start to the season and that is expected to increase in his second year. McQualter said the Eagles would do everything possible to prepare the explosive star for what is coming his way.

“We will put things in place but he’ll also learn to deal with it himself. I’m pretty sure he handled it himself pretty well for a large part of that last year. We’ll put some mechanisms around him but we’ll also have high expectations of him to be able to fight through his own battles,” McQualter said.

“He’s going to have a huge pre-season learning a new game plan as well which is a challenge for someone in their second year. There is no doubt there will be time to adapt to that. But we’ll look for him to keep doing the fundamentals of the game really well. We’ll try to set him up in a role where he can really shine. The expectation of him will be to give back to the group as well.

“We will definitely start with him in the midfield. He’ll be a midfielder. In terms of a secondary position, I’m really quite open to it. Whether it is forward or back, I think he has the skillset to play all the lines. We’ll just see how that evolves over time.”

West Coast started life under McQualter on Monday as the first to fourth year players returned to the club for pre-season training. Several older players including co-captains Oscar Allen and Liam Duggan and star midfielder Elliot Yeo were also part of the session.

The Eagles will have a new game plan under McQualter and he wasted little time teaching them about his formula to create more turnovers. He said that would be one of his biggest priorities over summer.

“There is a lot that we’ll work on but probably it’s about our speed of trying to turn the ball over. That’ll be our biggest focus for pre-season,” he said.

“It’s just the real emphasis on speed to try to create turnover. There’s a large build of a game plan that we’re going to try to do over summer but that will be one of our biggest priorities.

“The faster you can create turnover, the better the ground is going to be in shape to be able to attack it after. If we can create the turnovers then we’ll be able to get some speed off them.”

The players were welcomed back with fitness testing and Reuben Ginbey set the standard with his running strength.

Ginbey is entering his third AFL season after being drafted at pick nine and has been trialled in multiple positions across his first 40 games.

McQualter said having a 191cm player with elite running ability, the hulking strength to play in a key position and the mobility to be used as a smaller player meant Ginbey would be incredibly valuable to the team as a defender in 2025.

“He is some sort of athlete,” McQualter said.

“I think we’ll look to play him in the backline to begin with. We’ll really settle him there. He showed some great parts to his game last year and he’s still really young. He’s going to evolve and develop as a player but to begin with we will settle him in the backline.

“It’s a good thing to have, his physical traits. He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s fit. It gives him a great starting point. But whether he plays tall or small, it might be week-to-week dependant.

“But he gives himself a great physical profile to be able to play multiple roles.”

McQualter confirmed he’ll also play Richmond recruit Liam Baker as a backman after trading for him in the off-season. Baker won’t start at the Eagles for several weeks

Youngster Elijah Hewett also turned heads during the first session of the pre-season as he returned from a foot injury that left him sidelined for all of last season. McQualter said the 20-year-old was now free of restrictions.

“He was pretty excited to do his first session today,” McQualter said.

“There’s quite a bit of personality about Elijah and he was terrific. He did the full session today. It’s really exciting he hasn’t played much footy over the last few years. He’s fit and he’s ready to go.”

McQualter was appointed as Head Coach in September and said a large part of his pre-season would be dedicated to building relationships with his players. He admitted his first day in charge had felt strange.

“I was a bit nervous this morning to be honest,” he said.

“It felt a bit like the first day of school. But it’s always an exciting time coming back on day one, particularly when there’s so much change. There’s significant change amongst the coaching group. There will be significant change amongst the playing group as well. It’s all about opportunity and the excitement that brings.”