JOHN Worsfold still has the letter somewhere at home. It appeared in The West Australian sometime in 1989, penned by a Victorian football fan and it labelled West Coast as a bunch of "nervous nellies", a group of softies who coach John Todd should drag down the nearest meat works to "shovel some guts into them".

Worsfold was already a handy footballer for the Eagles, but the words stung deeply.

HALL OF FAME Check out the inductees, Legends and more

"I didn't start going any harder from then," he said.

"But I always had in my head that we were not going to be seen that way as a club, and I sort of took it on myself a little bit, that we have a hard edge and that we definitely don't get pushed around."

Worsfold's path to the Australian Football Hall of Fame probably started that day he picked up the paper.

He became the spiritual leader the underperforming club needed and from 1991 – a year after the arrival of Mick Malthouse as coach – its official on-field leader.

He is arguably the club's greatest figure, captain of its first two premiership teams and coach of its third.

It is his stature at what is, by several indicators, the largest club in the AFL that gets him into the Hall of Fame.

Like so many talented West Australians of his time, West Coast's entry into the League in 1987 was fortuitous because it saved them from relocating across the country in the nick of time.

A talented South Fremantle junior, he spent some time at Essendon the previous summer and both Collingwood and North Melbourne were also keeping tabs, but it was a no-brainer to join the start-up Eagles, with the added benefit of no disruption to his studies to become a pharmacist.

There was a thrill to the early days of the Eagles and there was plenty of emerging talent in what was a quasi-West Australian state team.

But after three years and one fleeting finals appearance, it needed the wily Malthouse, schooled in the hard-knocks world of Victorian football, to shape the Eagles into the powerhouse they became.

"It was Mick's knowledge of the other clubs, their grounds and what we were going to face, so forward scouting went up a notch," Worsfold said.

"He said we have to be the best defensive team; that championships around the world are won more often by the team that's best defensively.

"So, he got everyone to buy into that. We had a pretty talented team with some good forwards, but he got everyone to believe that defence was No.1 for us."

Worsfold was elementary to that. The old-fashioned centreman was transformed by Malthouse into a marauding half-back.

There were better players at the Eagles in his and the club's prime, and the midfield became the domain of the likes of Dean Kemp, Peter Matera, Chris Mainwaring and Don Pyke.

"I wasn't outstanding at any one thing, but pretty good at most things," he said.

"I could take an overhead mark, could take pack marks, kicked the ball reasonably well with both feet and never took a backward step.

"I really loved the contested side of the game against big fellas."

Truth be told, there was no harder player, nor one more combative in the entire AFL.

"And I trained hard. I never took a shortcut in any training, so I think I just always was striving to get the absolute best out of myself," he said.

The Eagles were made in his image. They were brilliant for much of 1991 but ran out of puff on the eve of the finals and were beaten in the only Grand Final played at Waverley Park by the older, battle-hardened Hawthorn.

They ran down Geelong in the 1992 Grand Final to win their maiden flag, the first for a team outside Victoria. Two years later they beat the Cats again, this time by 80 points in a team he said was the best he played in.

At 26, he was a dual premiership captain.

"I wasn't an overstated, publicity-seeking player," he said.

"We just kept the team grounded and there were no stars. We didn't put Peter Matera up on a pedestal, and say our game is built around a superstar.

"It was like, ‘No, you'll clean up the table after lunch, like any of us'.

"Glen Jakovich came in as a young superstar, but we kept him grounded and didn't let him get ahead of himself. He was just one of us. I think we were really good at that."

At their peak, the Eagles were impossible to beat on their home deck at Subiaco. Worsfold still chuckles at the memory of watching opposition clubs, at their captain's runs, measuring the length of the ground. He knew they were beaten already.

And after studying how west coast-based US sports teams dealt with cross-country travel, especially sleep and diet, they usually won away from home as well.

And despite his proud Fremantle heritage, Worsfold never contemplated changing camps when the Dockers joined the AFL in 1995.

"I was captain of the reigning premiers and West Coast was my club," he said. "I'm sure they tried to get a few of us, but I wanted to be a one-club player."

And at the end of 2001, he answered an SOS from his club.

After retiring at the end of 1998, WA's most famous pharmacist actually practiced pharmacy and dabbled in the media.

But he wanted to coach and in 2000 he joined Carlton as an assistant under David Parkin.

He expected to spend many years in Victoria and West Coast even threw him a going away party thinking he might never come back.

But the two years post-Malthouse under Ken Judge as coach were difficult and Worsfold offered West Coast a return to the values the club held dear.

He had to shepherd a few of his former teammates out the door but with young stars such as Ben Cousins, Daniel Kerr and a handy draftee in Chris Judd taking charge, he had the Eagles back in the finals in his first year and in 2006 they won the flag.

Only he and Parkin (Hawthorn in 1971 and 1978) have captained and then coached the same club to a premiership, and it further cemented their bond.

"He (Parkin) was the reason I moved to Melbourne," Worsfold said.

West Coast's 2006 premiership team was notorious for playing as hard off the field as it did on it.

"They weren't angels, but they weren't cheaters, either," he said.

"A couple of them made some blues, but you look at Drew Banfield, Rowan Jones, Mark Seaby, Ash Hansen, Dean Cox and others … they're quality people."

Worsfold later coached Essendon as that club came through some difficult times but is now back at the Eagles for a third stint, this time as director of football.

He admitted to a few pangs of envy when some of his West Coast teammates made it into the Hall of Fame before him, so he is delighted that his turn has come.

"It's special to be acknowledged by the industry and I think it's always a nice reward for your teammates, family and friends," he said.

"We often say we are so focused and self-centred throughout our playing and coaching careers, and a lot of people give up a lot and miss out on a lot of things while you're doing that.

"I know my kids are really proud of this acknowledgement; they're proud of me regardless, but I think they're rapt that the industry is acknowledging that perhaps I've contributed something to the game."

John Worsfold

Born: September 25, 1968
Career: West Coast (1987-98)
Games: 209
Goals: 37
Premierships: 1992, 1994
Best & fairest: 1988*
All-Australian: 1988, 1990
Captain: 1991-98, 138 games**
Western Australia: 5 games
Australia: 2 games
Coaching record: West Coast 2002-13 (281 games**, 149 wins, 130 losses, 2 draws), premiership 2006; Essendon 2016-20 (107 games, 45 wins, 61 losses, 1 draw)

*West Coast's best & fairest was later renamed the John Worsfold Medal
**Club record