After the disaster of the past two years for the West Coast Eagles, changes are already starting to take shape one day into pre-season.
Adam Simpson’s side has won a collective five games in the past 24 months, with the proud club lowering its colours for the first significant time in its history.
Plenty of the scrutiny revolved around West Coast’s fitness and the players’ commitment to the cause. Among a mountain of soft tissue injuries and uncompetitive performances, even former captain Luke Shuey admitted the Eagles hadn’t turned up in their peak condition last year.
It saw fitness boss Warren Kofoed depart midway through 2023, with Mathew Inness – who left the Western Bulldogs to move west - announced as his replacement in September.
As young gun Reuben Ginbey revealed after the Eagles’ first to fourth-year players returned to training on Monday, Inness is already making moves.
“Matty Inness, our new strength and conditioning coach, has come in with a lot of new great ideas,” he told SEN WA Breakfast.
“We scrapped two-kilometre and brought out this new long-distance two-kilometre (maximal aerobic speed test) which is a bit of a change, I was a bit flat because I was looking forward to doing the two-kilometre.
“I ended up going alright and was happy to get through and get the win over Chess (Campbell Chesser), so I’ve got bragging rights over him.”
Inness isn’t the only change, with a number of others throughout the football department.
If the first day of pre-season is anything to go off, there’s also been an attitude shift at the Eagles.
Senior players Jeremy McGovern, Elliot Yeo, Tom Barrass, Dom Sheed, Liam Duggan, Tom Cole and Jamie Cripps, all of who weren’t required on Monday, were at Mineral Resources Park being put through their paces.
“It feels super exciting at the moment,” Ginbey admitted.
“There’s been quite a bit of change, a few new strength and conditioning coaches and a few new coaches, it’s all feeling really exciting and young at the moment.
“It’s mainly been the younger boys coming in for the last two weeks but it was great to have the older boys come to support us yesterday and also join training.
“We don’t know how well we’re going to go next year but it’s definitely feeling exciting for the future.”
As for Ginbey himself, who has already put his best foot forward to start the pre-season, 2024 shapes as an important year.
Drafted with pick nine in the 2022 National Draft, the 19-year-old burst out of the blocks at AFL level to quickly announce himself as a key pillar in West Coast’s rebuild.
His body let him down as the season progressed, with Ginbey forced to carry a heavy load as a first-year player at the coalface of an underperforming team.
But the developing star believes he’s had the off-season to not only get back to the form he showed early in 2023, but to well and truly exceed it.
“I had a few more weeks of pre-season than the boys because of my hammy (injury), so I was really motivated over the off-season to get that back to normal and even improve on it, which I think I have,” he said.
“So that’s all really positive in terms of my body, I feel like I’m back to normal or even stronger. So a really successful off-season.”
Ginbey averaged 13.7 disposals per game in his 17 AFL appearances in 2023 but ranked first among rising star nominees for tackles with 5.9 per game.