High expectation and optimism surrounded the lead-up to the West Coast Eagles 2010 campaign.

After a couple of lean years there was a sense the club was on the rise. That it would continue the upward trend that had been building – four wins in 2008, eight in 2009, surely the next step was finals football.

Sometimes you can be too close to a situation; so close you can’t see the forest for the trees. And that glass half full attitude was mis-placed. Rather than pushing back into finals contention, the Eagles went backwards.

So far in reverse, in fact, that they hit rock bottom. Finished at the foot of the premiership table, ‘winning’ – if that’s the right word – the club’s first wooden spoon.

The squad, which was in transition could ill-afford injuries to its senior personnel and, unfortunately, that is what happened. Grand Final players from the 2005-06 period needed to stand tall and support the youth within the group, but they were powerless.

Daniel Kerr ripped the hamstring off the bone and played just two games, Darren Glass played eight after being struck down by osteitis pubis, Ashley Hansen was restricted to just two games, Mark Nicoski played six. And Brett Jones and Quinten Lynch had interrupted campaigns.

As well, Bradd Dalziell, recruited to add depth to the midfield, played eight games and emerging players like Chris Masten, Luke Shuey and Shannon Hurn all had injury issues which impeded their impact.

While the injury losses were severe, that still does not excuse a season which yielded just four wins – only one of them coming in the last 14 rounds.

As the season started to unravel senior coach John Worsfold, in the last third of the season, was constantly asked at his weekly media conferences about how he would feel if the Eagles did, in fact, finish at the foot of the table.

He stoically refused to engage in the debate, stubbornly gritting his teeth and suggesting it wouldn’t happen. Deep down the premiership captain and coach probably understood as one defeat rolled into the next that it was a growing possibility, but he would never concede. That was not in his nature.

He didn’t want to send a message to his players that might knock the last semblance of resistance out of them. He needed his charges to prepare for every game like they could win it. To do the work on preparing for the opposition and to imagine ways to get across the line.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Not often enough anyway.

The club did win three games in the first eight rounds, but then came a barren period where the only triumph was achieved against Essendon at Etihad Stadium. If there was one consolation from this woeful season, it was that the Eagles twice beat the Bombers.

And that round 16 victory was extra special.

Celebrating individual performances was all that West Coast fans could toast and small forward Mark LeCras produced one of the great performances in club history on this day.     

After seven successive losses there was a feeling within the inner sanctum that the West Coast Eagles were working towards ending the rot.

And so it transpired at Etihad Stadium on this wintry Melbourne night when the roof over the stadium shielded fans from the cold, but had Eagles supporters been exposed to the elements, they would not have felt the chill.

The performance of their team would have insulated them from the icy breeze and so hot was LeCras running, that he alone would have radiated enough warmth to blanket the faithful from the Arctic conditions.

No one attending the game had any idea how spectacularly West Coast would terminate its own cold snap or that LeCras would produce such an amazing personal effort. He kicked all four of West Coast’s first-quarter goals, finished with an amazing 12 goal effort to guide his team to its long-awaited triumph.

His even dozen was a record for an individual in the 10-year existence of the Stadium and was the biggest haul by a West Coast player since Scott Cummings kicked 14 goals against Adelaide at Subiaco Oval in 2000.

His game was punctuated by strong hands, almost unerring accuracy and capitalised on a midfield dominance the Eagles had not enjoyed since its last finals appearance in 2007.

With rookie listed players Ashton Hams, Andrew Strijk and Lewis Stevenson leading the way, in conjunction with another young Eagle, Ashley Smith, in his second game, from about the 10-minute mark of the opening term the Eagles dominated.

At that stage, West Coast trailed by four goals to one, had contributed to their own agony by producing costly turnovers, but soon that trend was reversed. Led by the white-hot LeCras as an attacking target, the midfield started to punch the ball inside 50 more efficiently than at any stage in the season.

Matt Priddis, Adam Selwood, Dean Cox and Andrew Embley led by example, the return of Shannon Hurn from injury was important to the defensive rebound and Josh Kennedy led the way with his defensive pressure and chase up forward.

In essence, while LeCras was the standout, it was a game where every player made his personal contribution to the triumph. That is what made it so very satisfying.

Unfortunately that was it for the year, but LeCras went on to claim the Club Champion Award.

The Eagles were competitive in many matches, but because of the dearth of seniority tended to tail off towards the end of games.

They had chances in both of the Western Derbies, but paid the price for inaccuracy on each occasion. Young teams, in particular, need to convert when they have the run of play but the Eagles kicked 6.13 in the first half of the round six encounter on the way to 13-point loss.

And in the second bout they kicked 8.18 on the way to a five-point loss. Eagles fans would have taken a derby win of any sort at that stage as the losing sequence in the local stoush had extended to seven and was becoming a source of great frustration.