Retiring West Coast ruckman Nic Naitanui is adamant the membership can rapidly rebound from the depths of despair, and he is backing coach Adam Simpson to steer them out of it.
Naitanui, who has been sidelined all 12 months with an Achilles tendon damage, introduced his speedy retirement on Monday.
He joins fellow membership legends Luke Shuey and Shannon Hurn in hanging up the boots.
West Coast received simply two video games final season, and they’re final on the ladder this 12 months with a 2-19 file and a woeful share of fifty.6.
Barring an unlikely win in opposition to the Bulldogs or Adelaide within the closing two rounds, West Coast will acquire simply the second picket spoon within the membership’s proud 37-year historical past.
The final time it occurred was in 2010, with the Eagles remarkably making the preliminary finals a 12 months later.
The rebuild this time round seems set to be an extended and extra painful one.
But Naitanui is optimistic issues will change rapidly, and he is backing Simpson and the remainder of the teaching group to show it round.
“I never forget, we won a wooden spoon in 2010, I was part of that, and we had some success in 2011,” Naitanui stated.
“I think it’s going to turn really quickly, and I feel we’ve got the right group for it, the right coaches, the right administration for it.”
Simpson’s future has been a scorching speaking level this season.
Five losses in extra of 100 factors, together with an embarrassing 171-point defeat to Sydney in spherical 15, means Simpson stays on shaky floor.
Naitanui wished he was in a position to play this 12 months to assist take the warmth off Simpson and the remainder of the staff.
One massive constructive about West Coast’s woeful kind is the very fact they’re on monitor to obtain the prized No.1 decide within the nationwide draft.
It means the Eagles can both snare gun Victorian midfielder Harley Reid, or commerce the decide away to a rival membership for as much as three first-round picks in return.
West Coast completed fifteenth of 16 groups in 2008, and it allowed them to snare Naitanui with decide No.2 in that 12 months’s nationwide draft, in addition to Shuey with a precedence choice decide (No.18).
“People forget sometimes that clubs go through these lulls. There’s some down times,” Naitanui stated.
“A lot of us players wouldn’t be in the room if it wasn’t for some of those down times.
“Shuey and I got here on the finish of 2008. We have been struggling and we have been early picks.
“That’s starting to happen now. You’re seeing guys like Elijah (Hewett), Reuben (Ginbey), and Noah Long come through.
“They’re that subsequent technology of men which might be going to come back and assist the gamers above them get higher and enhance.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
