WAFL Eagles coach Rob Wiley can see positive signs for the side heading towards next season, following the completion of a testing 2022 campaign.

Appointed to lead the squad last November ahead of the club’s WAFL return, Wiley faced difficult circumstances in his first season at the helm with the injury-hit AFL squad impacting player availability for the State league team.

West Coast’s one-win season came to a close following a competitive effort in a 23-point defeat to third-placed Claremont on Saturday.

“Claremont are a very good side. There were passages of the game when we needed to lift and unfortunately, we couldn’t go with Claremont, but they never stopped trying,” Wiley told westcoasteagles.com.au.

“That’s been the whole year, I reckon. We’ve shown some really good footy in patches but we’ve got to learn to sustain it over four quarters.”

Patrick Naish (33 disposals, one goal), one of four SSP players recruited to assuage a devastating run of pre-season injuries, impressed against the Tigers, along with Jackson Nelson (32, one goal), Greg Clark (23) and defender Luke Foley (19) in an encouraging finish.

“I thought Naish and Jackson Nelson really tried to lead the way. Foley down back a number of times he was up against it but just gave a great effort to hold the ball up,” Wiley said.

“(Josh) Rotham tried to give us some energy, I threw him into the ruck in the last quarter just to see if he could give us a spark and he certainly competed hard.

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“It was a year where there was good development of WAFL boys and I think a realisation too that we just need to work harder as individuals and a team, even in the WAFL where the standard is a high standard and we need to be at high fitness levels to compete.”

Aside from better availability, experienced mentor Wiley declared improvement would come from hard work and access to recruiting more talent.

“We need to get fitter, we need to get better and search for a bit more talent to help the AFL boys when they come back,” Wiley said.

“We’ll certainly work hard. We’re a long way ahead because we weren’t in the competition the end of last year.

“We need to get serious about making sure our WAFL squad is better. Everyone is keen. The boys that played this year are keen to improve.

“Positive signs moving forward.”