You’re sitting in the coaches box, time is ticking away. You need a goal. How do you conjure it?

Do you tweak the midfield mix, shuffle things around in the attacking arc – go small, go tall?  Put an extra behind the ball to create more space in the forward 50?

There are myriad ways coaches adjust their game plan or team structure in an effort to arrest the trend of a game that is slipping away.

West Coast Eagles senior coach Adam Simpson set this writer’s mind in motion when he suggested at his weekly media conference that now might be the time to flip the magnets on the whiteboard.

That over the last five rounds of the season with no prospect of advancing up the ladder, it might be opportune to see players in various roles.

It stimulated thoughts of players over the course of this club’s history who could play a variety of roles, depending on team needs.

Where better to start than at the beginning as we examine the top five “swingmen” in club history.

Securing the signature of Ross Glendinning was a pivotal moment in the formation of the inaugural West Coast Eagles squad. The former East Perth and North Melbourne champion and 1983 Brownlow medallist was the ultimate key position utility player.

He seamlessly transitioned from defence to attack and famously was moved forward in the Eagles first game against Richmond at Subiaco Oval.

With the Eagles trailing by 33 points at three-quarter time, coach Ron Alexander sent his captain forward and his presence inside the attacking zone helped to turn the game. Glendinning kicked only one goal himself but created countless others as the Eagles rattled on nine goals to win by 14 points.

During the ‘90s, when the Eagles played finals in every season of that decade, the Eagles’ Mr Fix It  was Chris Waterman.

“Muddy” as he was affectionately known played with great effect at half-back, through the midfield or at half-forward. An immaculately skilled left-footer, he played in both the 1992 and 1994 premierships starting in the back pocket in 1992 and on the interchange bench in 1994.

He played 177 games and kicked 75 goals during a wonderful career that was cut short by a back injury. Perhaps the capacity of Waterman to impact a game was best demonstrated in a 1990 semi-final against Melbourne at Waverley when he kicked six goals.

During that era – and beyond – the key position played called upon at a time of crisis, or to simply tweak the structure, was the oft understated Ashley McIntosh.  

So powerful, strong and unflappable he was Club Champion and earned all-Australian selection in 1998 when producing a remarkable season at full-back.

But he was more than a handful at the other end of the ground too.

His 242 matches yielded 108 goals, six times kicking four or more goals with his best haul being six against the Brisbane Bears in his second season, 1992. Ultimately he started at full-back on Cats spearhead Bill Brownless when the club won its first premiership.

Coaches hold precious those players who can easily adapt to different roles and the ‘go-to’ player for John Worsfold in the mid-2000s was Adam Hunter.

At 192cm and 92kg, Hunter played primarily as an under-sized key defender but when there was a need to find a match-winner it was often the magnet of #39 (coincidentally the same as Waterman) that was moved out of the back half and sent forward.

There were a number of examples of Hunter producing the clutch goal, none more so than the 2006 grand final when he capped off a brilliant smother and shepherd from Daniel Chick against Sydney. The image of Hunter leaping into the air, fist pumping towards the Eagles cheer squad is one of the iconic and enduring pictures of that day.

Hunter had also kicked a game-changing goal earlier in 2006 when the Eagles came from nine goals down against Geelong at Kardinia to produce one of the great come-backs in history.

In the current era the man with the capacity to play a couple of different roles and have a pronounced influence on a game is dual Club Champion Elliot Yeo.

Injury might have interrupted his career in the last couple of years, but Yeo produced a reminder of his broad skill set this season when moved to half-back to build both fitness and form after a long lay-off.

He produced his trademark line breaking speed playing in the back half where his penetrating ball use was also a feature. He won all-Australian selection in 2017 playing in defence, so it came as no surprise that he would be so important in the club’s mid-season improvement.

While it was in the midfield that he shone in the 2018 premiership season, Simpson knows that through Yeo he has options that can be deployed as needed.