As round one fast approaches, co-captain Liam Duggan believes West Coast’s solid pre-season has set the team up for a competitive year.

“We’ve obviously had a couple of years not up to standard so we’re looking forward, we’re well and truly into the build,” Duggan told SEN’s Dwayne Russell.

“There’s some good signs and good energy around the football club at the moment.

“We’re focused on a really healthy list, and we’ve been able to get through to this stage of the pre-season fairly well unscathed.

“We’ve got a couple of decent players looking to return in the early parts of the year too which is exciting for us.”

With the increase in match simulation drills as the season draws closer, Duggan said the team is feeling more prepared and equipped to take on the competition.

“We feel we’re much more footy ready at the moment than we have been probably previously, and we’ve really hiked up the minutes in terms of match simulation and really competitive type drills,” Duggan said.

“We feel we will be ready come the start of season to match it with the best.”

With exciting new recruits including Harley Reid, Clay Hall and Loch Rawlinson already making names for themselves on the training track, Duggan is feeling confident that the team boasts a good balance of youth and experience.

“I’m pretty optimistic with our list at the moment,” Duggan said.

“We’ve got 22 blokes under 22 and a lot of those players have now experienced senior AFL football, they unfortunately haven’t experienced much success just yet, but I think they’ll be better off for the run.

“And we’ve got a few of those senior players that we do still have on our list, a couple of them are returning to their best form which is really exciting.

“So, I think with our best side out there, we feel that we should be competitive, and that’s really what it is for us, to be in every game that we’re playing in, and bring our fans and members back to the footy.”