In an extensive interview, Worsfold, who has been guaranteed tenure until at least the end of the 2011 season, also reveals:
* He could walk away from the game now and be satisfied
* The side's improvement this year will ultimately be judged by wins and losses
* He has made significant changes to the club's football department
* The side's game plan does not need an overhaul
This is a significant year for the club - its 25th anniversary. Having been involved since the start, do you take time to reflect on that?
Definitely. It's a pretty big milestone for the footy club, obviously, and having been here from the start, everything that's been talked about, I was part of or remember. I pretty well know the club back to front.
Watching a couple of new clubs starting now, how were things different for West Coast at the beginning?
They get a little bit more support. Obviously the AFL want these clubs to succeed - when we started they just wanted our money, I don't think they cared if we succeeded or not. So it's massively different. We had a lot of hurdles to overcome, whereas you feel these new clubs, everything's been smooth for them - 'let's take out any obstacle so these guys can succeed at every opportunity and as quickly as possible' - whereas we were given a squad of 35 to start with when every other club in the competition at that stage had 50-odd on their list. It's a big difference to start with.
In your role now as coach, do you use the anniversary as motivation in any way with the current group?
I haven't. We're about our performances last year, finishing last for the first time for the club - that's enough motivation for our players to be doing everything right to start their climb up the ladder. We're challenging them to show what they're capable of and I believe they're capable of becoming an awesome team, but they can't wait too much longer to start to show that. That's the challenge for them. It doesn't mean they'll be an unbelievable, top-four team this year, but they need to show that they're improving and they've got the potential to get there.
How do you rate your players' preparation for the season so far?
Very good, really pleased with their preparation and where we've got the squad. There's been a few changes to our training structures and program that mean we've got more work into players both individually and as a group.
The mood around the footy department, does everyone feel as though they've prepared as much as possible for the coming season?
I think so. There's not a lot out there that we're thinking we have to hurry up and get done. We've done everything, now we're just maintaining it and getting ready for the season with a real focus on round one.
Are you motivated personally in any way by fear of failure coming into this season?
No, my motivation is to see this group of players start to show what they can do, where they're going to get to, because a lot of people doubt how good they can be. They're the biggest questions they have to answer. People are saying, 'The Eagles are wooden spooners, they're going to be no good this year and they'll be no good next year and no good the year after'. I'm saying we've got some really good young talent in this squad and they will climb the ladder. That's my motivation, to challenge these players to show what they can do. Where do they want to get to? Because I've played in a premiership, I've coached in a premiership, I could walk away now and be satisfied. But I want to give these guys the benefits of my experience having been there - about how great it is and how much they should be prepared to work for it - but it's up to them to show it.
Is it crunch time for this group?
It's not crunch time, but it will be if they don't show the improvement, because they won't hold their spots in the team and then they're potentially not on the list. Individually they have to show that they're going to improve - the players that are still in their first four or five years should still be improving.
You've consistently said 2012 is the year the group should start challenging the best teams. What do you need to see from them this year to know that's on track?
They have to show they're more capable of winning games this year, so win more games. Ultimately, for the majority of football people, that (improvement) is only going to be in whether you win or lose. So after five games, you might have played really well against the top four teams and just got beaten, but they'll look and say, 'Well you lost, so you haven't improved at all'. So what we've got to do is win more games.
What can you go into beyond wins and losses to determine if your players are improving?
There's hundreds of things we can go into, and we've got specific things that we'll be looking at. But the public won't be too interested in that - they want to see wins. They won't really care why. If a team's winning, as we've seen, you can play ugly football, but your supporters will be happy.
How much time was spent at the end of last year reviewing the season as a footy department?
A lot, definitely, reviewing everything and how we did it. I made some pretty big changes to the coaching staff and the department staff and the structure and roles of people. That took a lot of work, and all the coaches reviewed the playing group, their roles, and out of that came quite a lot of changes.
And did you find anything in your own approach that you wanted to change?
I did. And I made some pretty big changes around the structure, the way we're doing the job here. I certainly changed things for what I believe will be better - for me, for the coaches and for the players.
In terms of how the side plays, to what extent have you made adjustments over the summer?
They're not going to be standout changes that people will pick out straight away, other than hopefully [things that] make us a better performing team. You're always adjusting certain things, but we've trained parts of our game style pretty heavily.
Was the game plan as it sat last year suited to the young side that played most weeks and where they were in their careers?
There's a question about that. With such a young group, were they not really ready for that style? If you changed and played a different style, would their youth and inexperience still have been found out? That's a hard one to answer, but we did challenge players to try hard things because we need to learn and we need them to be able to do that as they improve. Players got criticised for making errors, whereas we think they learnt and we learnt about them by going for those things.
So it's about getting them ready to play a game style that will win more games when they're ready?
The argument is can you build this group up playing a pretty safe game style, and then when you think they're ready to play good finals footy and you have to change the game plan, will they cope? Do you take a backward step by doing that, or do you start from scratch and struggle at a hard game plan for a year or two and as you improve you don't have to change it? There's always debate about that.
Can we expect to see a smaller, more defensive forward line this season?
Defensive pressure is a big part of what the good teams are doing at the moment, so when we've got the ball in there we need to be creative and score, but also not let the opposition get it out easily and score at the other end. That's certainly an area we want to be good at.
Ashton Hams would appear a part of your best 22 at the moment; are you concerned at all that he's not yet on your senior list?
Unfortunately for Ashton's sake I won't be hoping for injuries to get him on - I'd much rather have our full list available to choose from, knowing then that Ashton is available to play. He's had a good pre-season and he showed a bit last year, but he hasn't proven himself as an AFL footballer in a winning team yet. So those spots are all up for grabs and if he's available that's great. If he's not available, he has to play really good footy in the WAFL until a spot opens up.
If he's not available, who are you looking at to play that small forward role for you early this season?
Ryan Neates we were pleased with, Gerrick Weedon, obviously 'Lecca' (Mark LeCras) will be up there and Brad Ebert, Luke Shuey, Chris Masten, Daniel Kerr potentially can play through those roles.
How have you assessed the club's development programs for young players over the last two to three years?
We've adjusted them regularly over the years, probably no more significantly than last year - I've overhauled it a fair bit. So now it's going to take it a year or two to measure and say, 'Is that system working better than the previous system?' I'm confident it will, because I know the reasons why I did it and I know the outcomes I was looking for.
Adam Selwood spoke recently about making way for younger players in the midfield. Is Chris Masten ready now to play there full-time?
Definitely. He's still a young midfielder in this competition, but he's going to start to show that he deserves to play midfield. Over the next few years we'll see a top-line player develop.
