West Coast isn’t looking back on last year’s stunning upset of the Western Bulldogs, but coach Adam Simpson hopes to see the same spirit at Marvel Stadium on Easter Sunday.

In one of the upsets of last season, the Eagles prevailed by seven points in round 23 coming off a triple-figure RAC Derby defeat.

But the senior coach highlighted the differences between that team and the new era at the club with 22 players aged under 22 on the list.

“It’s a different club, really. A different era. That game had a lot of spirit and I think we’re playing with pretty good spirit at the moment, but probably for different reasons,” Simpson said on Good Friday.

“The group has changed. They’re embracing the next phase, whereas last year was more of a stoic approach to what was happening around the club at the time.

“We came off a poor loss last year as well, and really proud of what they did and how we handled all that, but this is different, we’re on a different pathway.

“Love to play with the same energy and commitment, and I think the Doggies look a bit better too.

“Challenging game, but we’re up for it.”

Simpson confirmed veteran Andrew Gaff and half-back Alex WItherden would play for the WAFL Eagles in their season-opener on Saturday at Swan Districts, while draftee Harvey Johnston will travel to Melbourne as the emergency.

Developing ruck Harry Barnett will return to the WAFL team after a tough day against Giants big man Kieren Briggs in round two.  

Tall forward Jack Williams will play his first game of the season to support Jack Darling, Jake Waterman and Ryan Maric in attack, plus Bailey Williams in the ruck.

“I reckon (Barnett) got 10, 15 games of experience in 60 minutes. He’ll go back and get going on his craft,” Simpson said.

“You don’t really want to bring these kids in for one week and push them out, but I think when it comes to young ruckmen it’s a little bit different.

“Just wanted to give him a sniff because he’s done a really good job over the last three or four weeks at WAFL. He’ll get a really good indication of where he’s at.

“He’s got a bit of work to do but he’s up for that challenge, but we’ll stick with Bailey this week.”

Meanwhile, Elijah Hewett flew east on Wednesday to undergo surgery on his foot in Melbourne and Simpson hoped the exciting midfielder would return after the mid-season bye.

“We just wanted to avoid surgery if we could. We did everything we could to get that right, we gave it some time, tried different techniques and this is last resort,” Simpson said.

“We’ve just got to get it done now and hopefully we get him back this year. It’s a 10-12 week type of injury that you recover from.

“It’s not that uncommon to get the surgery, but that particular injury if you can avoid it it’s the first step.”