A cursory glance at the results of the 1989 season would indicate a dismal year where little was salvaged from the wreck.

After finishing in the top four 12 months earlier, the Eagles dipped to 11^th position, copped the biggest hiding in club history – it remains the highest losing margin 27 years later – and the senior coach was sacked.

In a word, disastrous.

It’s a little easier with the benefit of long-range hindsight, but it proved to be a defining year for a young club where much was achieved to set up what became a stellar decade.

Living through it was challenging, particularly those within the inner sanctum, when the club won just once in the first 11 rounds and sat at the base of the VFL premiership table.

It was a year that started badly and it proved difficult to recover, although the back end of the season did provide some highlights.

After a solid performance in the pre-season night competition, the Eagles were unable to arrange a practice game in the three weeks leading into the opening round against Essendon and after a bright start were, predictably, overrun and defeated by 16 points – despite a seven-goal haul from Phil Scott and an impressive debut by Peter Sumich, who played full-back on Bombers star Paul Salmon.

Heavy losses to Geelong (95 points), Sydney (52) and North Melbourne (43) followed. That situation was compounded by a serious run of injuries to key players, which began when versatile big man Laurie Keene limped from the ground in the third quarter against the Cats.

His Achilles problem would frustrate him for 18 months and he would not play his next senior game until the last qualifying match the next year.

It seemed that even when the Eagles got it right, they got it horribly wrong. After those four morale-sapping losses to kick off the 1989 campaign the players considered, in a show of solidarity, that they would, quite literally, back themselves to beat Brisbane at Carrara. At the attractive odds of 9/4 they got the job done, winning by an impressive 52 points.

Gangly, pigeon-toed forward Stevan Jackson made a spectacular debut kicking six goals and the football world didn’t seem so bad any more.

But news of the successful punting plunge leaked, it made its way onto the back page of The West Australian and the club was fined $9000 – all of their winnings. You can only imagine the furore that would create in the modern environment where the integrity of the game is so fiercely protected.

That short-lived celebration was punctuated by another five successive defeats and more heartache and injury for the Eagles.

The middle match in that cluster was against St Kilda at Moorabbin, a tough venue at the best of times and not just because of the hostile crowd and the typically boggy conditions of the average Melbourne suburban ground.

The Saints also boasted one of the great forwards in the history of the game – powerhouse Tony Lockett. In the middle of the opening quarter West Coast young gun Guy McKenna dropped back into the “hole” in front of Lockett and was steamrolled.

McKenna was carried from the ground on a stretcher, barely moving, and Lockett went on to kick 11 of his team’s 18 goals. It was a brutal attack on an opponent and Lockett was handed a four-week suspension for the incident.

Again, there was a brief respite from the win-loss carnage when, after six successive losses, the Eagles found a way to win against Footscray at the WACA Ground in round 12. Sumich kicked eight goals as the Eagles recorded a much-needed 28-point win.

Rather than seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, the Eagles were staring into the lights of the on-coming training. This ridiculously wild season was about to get even worse before it would get better.

There was another loss to Carlton at Princes Park before a week off as South Australia and Victoria played a State of Origin match and then it was back to Carlton’s home ground to confront 1988 premiers Hawthorn.

The Hawks mauled the Eagles. An eight goal first quarter blew away any semblance of resistance from a broken team and Hawthorn marched to a 91-point triumph.

A week later, for the third leg of a horror schedule, and West Coast again travelled to Melbourne – this time to confront Essendon at Windy Hill. It would become one of the darkest days in West Coast history.

The Eagles kicked just one goal – in the second term from Chris Lewis – on the way to a humiliating 142-point defeat, 25.10 (160) to 1.12 (18). It remains the heaviest loss in club history.

By this stage the media and fans were looking for a head on a platter and John Todd was the target. But the Eagles supported their coach and chose to work through the last seven weeks of the year.

The first challenge was Sydney at Subiaco Oval. The club developed a theme around the letter “P” in the lead-up to the game. It might have seemed a little like Sesame St, but “P” was the message because it was the 16^th letter of the alphabet and the players were encouraged to live by values like professionalism, persistence and pace.

It proved a stroke of genius, with West Coast eclipsing the Swans by 42 points and a day when Sumich continued to add some gloss to an otherwise drab season, kicking five goals.

They secured successive victories for the first time in the season the following week against Footscray – a win which elevated them off the bottom of the premiership table for the first time in eight weeks.

A third triumph a week later against Richmond and the Eagles were starting to re-discover their mojo, but Fitzroy then turned a two-point lead at three-quarter time into a handsome 32-point win at Princes Park when West Coast could not kick a goal in the final term.

It was then host to Geelong at the WACA Ground and the Cats had to contend with all manner of difficulties. In the middle of the pilot’s strike, they chartered a plane, the players arriving at the team hotel at 4.30am on the day of the game.

Not surprisingly they were not as sharp as they might have been and were despatched by 44 points as Sumich and Jackson kicked five goals each.

The Eagles finished their season with a handsome 76-point win over Carlton at Subiaco Oval before a second half fade out against Collingwood at Victoria Park saw them post a 49-point loss.

Again, through the benefit of hindsight, one of the most important people on that flight to Melbourne for the clash with the Pies was newly-appointed football manager Trevor Nisbett.

Attention immediately turned to the coaching position and in grand final week the board interviewed Mick Malthouse and Robert Walls. Earlier Kevin Sheedy, Alan Joyce and Wayne Schimmelbusch had been approached, but each of them declined.

At the same time Todd was also invited to re-apply, but in the end the decision was made to bring Malthouse west and so began a remarkable decade.

The Malthouse-Nisbett partnership was critical to that success, but their relationship made a rocky start. As senior coaches tend to do, Malthouse was keen to bring some of his close confidantes on board and had someone in mind for the key football post.

But Nisbett was only a month into the role and was going nowhere.