The new direction taken this year by the West Coast Eagles seems to be paying off.

After an extensive list turnover in the off-season, the Eagles’ AFLW team’s green shoots are pushing through and an exciting future is there for all to see from the competition’s youngest team.

With three rounds to play, West Coast has had three players – Sarah Lakay, Ella Roberts and Charlie Thomas – nominated for the Rising Star award in consecutive weeks.

Only one other side in AFLW has recorded three Rising Star nominations in-a-row, with inaugural premier Adelaide also sharing the honour in the first season of AFLW when the competition only contained eight teams.

West Coast decided to head in a new direction at the conclusion of season six and added 15 new players in what is the biggest list turnover the competition has seen.

Anyone who looks solely at the win-loss record many would think the Eagles have had a very similar performance to last season with two wins on the board.

However, with three games left to play both staff and players are extremely optimistic about the team’s development and increased competitiveness, especially considering the Eagles have fielded a younger team than their opponents in every game so far this season.

Exciting first-year forward Ella Roberts reinforced the cohesion within the group, noting the side has put in the hard work since pre-season and driven higher standards.

“We’ve got the best group of girls and I’ve made some good friends,” Roberts said.

“We’ve been working well together as a group, and we are pretty happy with the positives we’ve taken from each match.

“We’ve got a pretty young group including myself, I’m sure there are more (Rising Star) nominations on the way for this team.

“We are a building side and we’ve played some of our best footy this year. If we can put together four quarters of good footy, I think we can be successful.”

 A remarkable stat to come out of the Eagles’ round six clash against Hawthorn was the playing group’s average age of 22.8, which meant that squad of 21 players was the youngest side ever to play in AFLW.

Throughout this season the Eagles have fielded three teams in the  10 youngest sides to ever play in the competition.  

Despite four teams entering the competition this season, the Eagles haven’t played a team younger with the closest coming in round three against expansion side Essendon. (24.02 to 24.27).

Coming into the group last season as a rookie, 19-year-old Charlie Thomas has been a key part of the West Coast rebuild, really hitting her stride leading into her Rising Star nomination.

“It’s exciting to have three nominations in a row, it means we are heading in the right direction,” Thomas said.

“The club and coaches have backed us younger girls to go out and play our role, it lets us shoulder the load a bit for the senior players.

“Having key leaders around us like Bella Lewis and Emma Swanson is also helping, they are having amazing games each week and they are good role models for the younger group.

“It’s strange to think that I am one of the more experienced players in the squad having played last year, but I’m loving the challenge.”

It seems the youth approach is working for the Eagles as the side looks to retain and develop their squad for the next few seasons, taking the process-driven route that hopefully leads to sustained success in years to come.