At the halfway point of the qualifying season, West Coast is sitting second on the ladder with the best percentage in the competition and appears primed for a serious assault on September.
The team’s success has baffled critics across the country, many of whom had ruled the Eagles out of finals contention for another year.
But midfield coach Brady Rawlings said that the signs shown by the players in the last few weeks of season 2014 should have been a strong indicator of West Coast’s intentions.
The Eagles won five of their last seven matches, storming home to miss out on the top eight by a single match when Richmond defeated Sydney in the final qualifying round of the season.
Rawlings told Sportsday that while the Eagles may have surprised the external football world with their success so far this season, the team is still looking to improve.
“We’ve probably outperformed the expectations from the outside,” Rawlings said.
“We felt the last six rounds of 2014 our football had come along quite well.
“And then over pre-season after working on a few things, we’ve come out and have been able to perform so far this year.
“I’m not too sure that we’ve exceeded our own expectations, but all we want to do is improve on last year and give ourselves the opportunity to play finals and, at this stage, it’s going okay.”
West Coast’s biggest scalp is far this season came last week when they defeated Richmond at the MCG, having played three games in three different states over just 12 days.
The Eagles went into the game with an undersized defence for the tall trio of Tiger forwards, but limited the three-pronged forward line to just four goals in a solid display of team defence.
Rawlings believes that the sense of unity among the players is playing a part in West Coast’s recent success.
“The unity side of things is something [Adam Simpson] has always been huge on as a player, as a captain, and now as a senior coach,” Rawlings said.
“He’s always about the players bonding and we do it all together, so he’s brought that across.
“I think we had a pretty tight group as it was, but he’s probably taken it to another level.”
Listen to Brady's full interview with Sportsday below.
