IT MIGHT not have been an ideal circumstance which saw Jaymie Graham step into the senior coach's hot seat last Sunday but – now that Adam Simpson's daughter is recovering – the West Coast assistant is reflecting positively on a successful outing in the top job.

Graham became the seventh senior coach in Eagles history, if only for a day, when Simpson rushed back to Perth to be by his young daughter Elsa's side in hospital.

After being thrust into the main role with only a few hours' warning, Graham oversaw a 51-point belting of the Bulldogs.  

It also meant he kept a perfect strike rate for first-time Eagles coaches, with West Coast the only club which has never lost a game with a debutant in the senior job.  

But Graham was quick to credit his colleagues for a seamless gameday at Etihad Stadium. 

"A lot of our work had been done throughout the week. All the line coaches had done their work," Graham told AFL.com.au.  

"Really, for me, having a different responsibility gameday was a good experience to actually have to address the group as a team and do all the media that comes with it.

"Now that everything has worked out well with Elsa, I reflect on it positively. 

"Obviously Simmo had a bit going on that night (before the game) that he was working through, and then at 10.30am the next morning we called a meeting for all the staff that were over there and that's when I found out that I would be taking his spot.

"Then we had to work out how we were going to shuffle a few things.

"There wasn't a lot of warning, which probably wasn't a bad thing." 

Sitting in the senior coach's chair wasn't completely foreign to Graham. 

After a two-year stint at St Kilda he returned to the Eagles - where he played 37 games in the mid-2000s - as a development coach in 2014 and was promoted to mentor East Perth for the WAFL campaign two years later, leading the Royals to finals. 

Time will tell if his coaching pathway leads to a senior AFL role but Graham has ticked-off his level three accreditation, graduated from David Wheadon's esteemed Next Coach Program and is studying a teaching course at Edith Cowan University.

For now, though, the 35-year-old is relishing overseeing the transition of West Coast's forward line, featuring first-year Eagles Liam Ryan, Willie Rioli, Daniel Venables and Jake Waterman.

"I have thought about my future but at the moment I'm really enjoying my role as forward line coach and looking to try and do that to the best of my ability," Graham said.  

"I love working for the Eagles. We'll just take each year and see how I progress. 

"I'm still fairly young in a coaching sense, so I've got a lot of work to do."