New West Coast football boss John Worsfold concedes Eagles may have taken too long to start rebuild

New West Coast head of football John Worsfold says the club may have taken too long to concede they were in a rebuild as they look to bounce back from the most tumultuous period in their history.

Worsfold has returned to the Eagles in an official role for the first time in more than a decade, with the club’s most decorated figure to take charge of the football programs across the AFL, WAFL and AFLW.

It’s a significant move from chief executive Don Pyke, with West Coast already making the massive appointment of Andrew McQualter as coach eight days earlier.

Worsfold returns to the football industry after four years in the private sector, having finished coaching Essendon in 2020 after five years.

The Eagles’ only two-time premiership captain and their longest-serving coach at 281 games, Worsfold knows about success and how to achieve it.

Asked about what he had viewed of West Coast from the outside in his time away from the game, Worsfold said it may have taken too long to admit they needed to go back to the bottom of the ladder to build for their next period of success.

“Most people have felt as though they (the Eagles) weren’t 100 per cent sure of the pathway back to success,” Worsfold told Wide World of Sports.

“They weren’t sure they could see it or hear it talked about. I know we’ve talked about the rebuild and maybe there was too much of a delay to admit the club was going to go into that full rebuild mode as in have a reasonable dip down the ladder before they start to climb back.

“It felt as though people, after a couple of years struggling and then the club started to talk about focusing on bouncing back, and people were a bit frustrated it was already two years gone.

“Just being absolutely clear on where we sit, what the pathway forward is going to be, what that’s going to look like, you can’t always put an exact timeline on it but I think you should have pretty strong idea looking at the demographic of your playing list about when you think you’re going to become very competitive again.”

Worsfold said he would meet with new coach McQualter in the next few days ahead of his official start date on November 4.

“Andrew will have very clear ideas about where he wants to start, what he want to work on first etc,” Worsfold said.

“I’m really keen to listen to him. He doesn’t have to explain everything he is going to do to me, I will observe him and watch him putting things in play but if he wants to bounce ideas off me before he gets going, we’ll be doing that.

“I will catch up with him in the next three or four days. We will sit down and have a talk really about where he things he might want some assistance from someone like myself.

“He’ll be appointing another coach, there’s one or two coaching spots that he’ll be looking to fill and I’m sure he’s looking at guys that will complement his skill set. So any list bits I can assist him with in that regard, I will be there to help him through it.

“I will certainly not be trying to guide him in any directions, I just want him to do what he feels is going to be his coaching method, bring it on and then I’ll support him and make sure everything that is in place is driven towards helping him achieve that.”