What Has Happened To West Coast?

As noted in this week’s AFL Power Rankings, at the start of 2011 West Coast were considered the worst team in the competition. But in a bit over a year the very same rankings show them to the best team in the competition, and they sit on top of the AFL ladder.

How have the Eagles become so good so quickly? A few weeks back I looked at the reasons for Collingwood’s drop off in form, using average Champion Data (SuperCoach) player ratings for their main 22 players in 2011 and 2012. I found then that the reason for the Pies’ relatively cold streak appeared to be mainly due to injuries, and conjectured that they would get better as players returned.

For the Eagles though the reasons for their improvement are more multi-faceted than this. In 2010, when they finished last, a lot of things went wrong for them. Since then a lot of things have gone right. Let’s start by looking at the average player ratings for their main 22 players in each of 2010 and 2011.  

	Supercoach Average
	2010	2011	Diff.
Dean Cox	88.00	116.68	28.68
Nic Naitanui	71.18	94.61	23.43
Josh Kennedy	67.14	84.96	17.82
Scott Selwood	64.90	82.64	17.74
Quinten Lynch	64.57	80.50	15.93
Matt Rosa	79.40	86.89	7.49
Will Schofield	53.05	58.74	5.69
Matt Priddis	108.79	113.16	4.37
Andrew Embley	86.70	90.46	3.76
Mark Lecras	82.19	83.50	1.31
Patrick McGinnity	58.06	57.26	-0.80
Shannon Hurn	84.60	82.48	-2.12
Brad Ebert	70.55	62.95	-7.60
Adam Selwood	91.62	63.16	-28.46
Beau Waters	82.14
Ashton Hams	72.45
Andrew Strijk	65.20
Eric MacKenzie	64.22
Brad Sheppard	59.93
Mitch Brown	57.54
Tom Swift	56.23
Chris Masten	50.23
Luke Shuey		93.92
Daniel Kerr		92.56
Sam Butler		81.92
Mark Nicoski		71.60
Jack Darling		70.91
Andrew Gaff		63.65
Ashley Smith		62.56
Darren Glass		54.46
Changed players	507.94	591.58	83.64
Total	1578.69	1749.57	170.88

A couple of points to note: first, the Eagles had a lot of injuries in 2010. Picking their main 22 was a tough task, but in both 2010 and 2011 I’ve picked the 22 players who played the most games, even though Andrew Strijk gets into the Eagles’ main 22 in 2010 with just 10 games. Second, I think that Champion Data adjusted their formulas between 2010 and 2011 so that ruckmen were rated more highly, so keep this mind when looking at the scores of Dean Cox and Nic Naitinui.

That said, these seem to be the main reasons why the Eagles improved so much from 2010 to 2011:

·        Of the players who were 'core' in both 2010 and 2011, there was a significant improvement in production in 2011 by Cox, Scott Selwood, Josh Kennedy, Naitanui, and Quinten Lynch. Lynch was hampered by injury in 2010, and even though Cox played every game in 2010 it was clear at the time he was hampered too. The other three players are all very young, so it is not too big a surprise to see that they improved.

·        Apart from Cox and Lynch, Daniel Kerr, Sam Butler, Mark Nicoski and Darren Glass also suffered from injuries in 2010, and their return in 2011 seemed to help the side. By ‘help the side’ I mean one could say that they were better than the players they replaced (although in the case of a key defender like Glass it’s hard to tell this from the ratings).

·        The new players in West Coast’s main 22 were all useful additions: namely Luke Shuey, Andrew Gaff and Jack Darling (particularly Shuey).

The Eagles have maintained their form, and possibly improved, in 2012. Let’s see how the 2012 team compares with that 2010 campaign:

	Supercoach Average
	2010	2012	Diff.
Scott Selwood	64.90	110.89	45.99
Chris Masten	50.23	91.44	41.21
Nic Naitanui	71.18	105.43	34.25
Beau Waters	82.14	102.22	20.08
Dean Cox	88.00	107.44	19.44
Will Schofield	53.05	69.14	16.09
Matt Rosa	79.40	94.12	14.72
Eric MacKenzie	64.22	76.38	12.16
Shannon Hurn	84.60	95.78	11.18
Quinten Lynch	64.57	66.44	1.87
Ashton Hams	72.45	69.33	-3.12
Josh Kennedy	67.14	61.20	-5.94
Matt Priddis	108.79	94.71	-14.08
Patrick McGinnity	58.06	43.33	-14.73
Adam Selwood	91.62	53.38	-38.24
Andrew Embley	86.70
Mark Lecras	82.19
Brad Ebert	70.55
Andrew Strijk	65.20
Brad Sheppard	59.93
Mitch Brown	57.54
Tom Swift	56.23
Luke Shuey		110.67
Andrew Gaff		93.89
Josh Hill		79.11
Daniel Kerr		77.33
Jack Darling		76.78
Darren Glass		68.12
Sam Butler		67.20
Changed players	478.34	573.10	94.76
Total	1578.69	1814.33	235.64

Again, the return of some senior players (Cox, Kerr, Glass) to full health has helped, and the new additions (Shuey, Gaff, Darling) have been even better in 2012. Part of the story though may be a natural maturation of players: some players that are now reaching their mid-20s (Beau Waters, Will Schofield, Matt Rosa, Eric MacKenzie, Shannon Hurn) all seem to have improved somewhat, and some players that are now in their early-20s — Selwood, Naitanui, and Chris Masten — appear to have improved dramatically. Or maybe coach John Worsfold has just picked up his game in getting this team to perform! Either way, given that most of this team is still quite young, we could see some more improvement yet.