REUBEN Ginbey's ability to play multiple defensive roles shapes as a key to a strengthened West Coast's backline in 2026 after a summer spent working closely with Geelong dual premiership hero Harry Taylor.

Ginbey finished second in the Eagles' best and fairest last season and was a shining light in a one-win season, often playing as an undersized key defender and holding up well against opponents including Jeremy Cameron, Riley Thilthorpe, Aaron Naughton, Mitch Georgiades and Josh Treacy. 

Voted into the leadership group for 2026 and looking to take the next step in his career, the 21-year-old has spent a lot of the summer working on his aerial craft with Taylor, who is a leadership and performance consultant at the Eagles and a regular on the track. 

A 280-game star who was arguably the best key defender in the AFL when he earned his second All-Australian selection in 2013, Taylor said Ginbey was a "unique" athlete whose versatility and competitive spirit would be important this season.

"His physical skill set is quite rare from my experience in the AFL. He has elite power, a phenomenal aerobic capacity, and he's got a great leap at the football," Taylor told AFL.com.au. 

"He's got terrific strength for a player that hasn't done a lot of pre-seasons yet and, really importantly, he's got that competitive gene.

"He just doesn't want to lose, and I think that there's a difference between wanting to win and hating to lose. For me, he's one of those people that just doesn't want to lose contests.

"The flexibility that he offers is important, and he's obviously spent some of his career as a midfielder as well. So having those utility-type players is really important, and Reuben certainly fits into that category."

Taylor has combined with development coach Jacob Brennan to run an aerial program with all of the Eagles' key-position players this pre-season, focusing on elements of the game including contested marking and spoiling.

The Eagles ranked 17th in 2025 for contested marks differential (-3.1), with important key-position players Jeremy McGovern, Oscar Allen and Jake Waterman all missing long periods with injury. 

Waterman and second-year tall Jobe Shanahan shape as key aerial targets in attack this year, with Archer Reid also emerging, while the 191cm Ginbey will be supported in defence by tall pair Harry Edwards and Tylar Young, as well as versatile dual premiership Lion Brandon Starcevich. 

"We're trying to work on becoming better and more predictable in those contests and Reuben's part of a group that's been doing work on that," Taylor said.

"I hope we can improve as a club in that particular area of the game. We've focused on it and we want to see it translate into performance on game day.

"It's a fundamental of the game, it's one of the unique parts of AFL, and based on what the data tells us around these aerial contests there's lots of them, particularly in bigger games when there's more pressure to kick to the contest."

While Ginbey's elite fitness is an asset on the field, Taylor believed it was also an important element in allowing the 191cm defender to learn quickly after swapping between the midfield and backline roles early in his career. 

"He reminds me a lot of Mark Blicavs with how fitness can be of great benefit to development," Taylor said. 

"After drills he's not trying to catch his breath as quickly as someone else who might not be as fit, so he's able to take on information easier than someone who's really fatigued if you're trying to coach them after a big effort or a big drill.

"He has ability to concentrate, hear messages and learn. He's a really easy player to work with because he's self-driven, he's receptive to feedback, and he wants to learn." 

When it comes to other parts of his game, Ginbey has worked extensively on his kicking with development coach and premiership captain Shannon Hurn, while also working with new defensive assistant Mitch Duncan. 

His elevation into the leadership group reflected a view held across the entire playing group and staff that the 63-gamer had emerged as an on-field leader in a terrific 2025 season, and he was ready to lift and drive standards at the club. 

"It's been a strong body of work since he's got to the club, and now that he's in the leadership group, we need to keep asking more of him," Taylor said.  

"We need to keep asking him to raise the standards, impact contests, influence others to do the right thing as much as you can, and we're really hopeful we're going to keep seeing that growth out of him. 

"He's well connected to the playing group and can easily mix with the oldest player on our list but also the youngest player on our list, and that's important.  

"His desire, willingness and competitiveness are some of his greatest strengths, and from a leadership perspective we really encourage those strengths to come out and encourage him to play to those strengths."