WEST Coast has built a makeshift gym in a car park at Domain Stadium to ensure the Eagles' football department can be more time efficient over the coming seasons, Eagles chief executive Trevor Nisbett says.
The Eagles have constructed a shed outside the players' entrance to their training and administration facility to provide them with more space, as the old gym had become too small to house the entire squad for a training session.
The Eagles' old gym at Domain Stadium was constructed in 1999 but with WA football set to move to the new Perth Stadium for the start of the 2018 season, and the Eagles planning on moving their training and administration base to a yet-to-be-built facility at Lathlain Park, several kilometres east of the new stadium, the club elected to build a makeshift structure in order to help the football department in the short-term.
Nisbett said the move was all about practicality and efficiency.
"The gym was built in 1999 and there's just not enough space, and the configuration also makes it really awkward to get the whole squad in there at any one particular time," Nisbett told AFL.com.au.
"So each time you do a weights session you've got (to split into) three squads taking up a whole afternoon doing their weights.
"Now we have the opportunity to have all of our players in the one gym, and it's basically a constructed shed with the right flooring and everything for a gym.
"It's not elaborate but it's been built for efficiency. It will certainly help players and staff throughout the year so that they can devote their time for other things."
Nisbett said the club had been considering such a measure for a number of years but the arrival of Adam Simpson at the end of 2013 and the various changes to the football department had sparked the club into action.
"Certainly since Adam has been here it was very noticeable, and with the staff that he's brought on, it was difficult for them to operate in the restricted spaces that we've got," Nisbett said.
"So we needed to do something. What that's done is provide us with the efficiency that we need, and a bigger gym, and also we can free up the old gym so we can use it for other purposes.
"It's about not standing still. Whilst we've got our eyes focused on the move to Lathlain, we just can't stand still in the meantime. We have to keep progressing."
Nisbett said that the club would not rush the move to Lathlain. The move was announced in September 2013 and the club reached an agreement on the lease of Lathlain Park with the Town of Victoria Park in September of 2014.
The club received $10 million of federal government funding for the project in August last year but there is no formal timeline yet on the construction and completion of the facility.
Nisbett said the short-term build of a new gym at Domain Stadium would allow the Eagles the flexibility to remain in Subiaco through 2018 and even the summer of 2019 if necessary.
