The next two months are the most exciting and stimulating of the year. If you’re in the premiership hunt.

The race to the final eight is simply intriguing. So many possibilities, so many twists likely in the run home. At the end of it all the next AFL champions will be crowned.

For those sitting outside the finals equation it feels like you have been invited to a dance but are left sitting despondently in the corner waiting forlornly for an invitation onto the floor. You know it won’t come, but you hope.

It has been obvious for some time that the West Coast Eagles will not be a part of the September hype and festivities. It has been like that for three years now. We have been entrenched in the bottom quartile of the competition. Out of the race early.

It’s no fun.

But rather than skulk disconsolately in the shadows the coming weeks are just as important for the Eagles.

The fifth premiership will not come in 2024 but over this period the Eagles will work to lock away key pieces in the quest for a Cup to sit on a vacant plinth at Mineral Resources Park.

The search for the next senior coach has begun, list manager Matt Clarke is working diligently behind the scenes at ways to bolster the senior squad through the trade period as well as plotting a course to get the best possible access to exciting talent in the National Draft.

The club will be finals spectators but will be far from dormant.

The renaissance of this Eagles list has been occurring in the last couple of years. To some extent it has happened somewhat surreptitiously given the club has won just nine times from the last 70 matches – starting with a run of four defeats to end the 2021 campaign.

Quite rightly the spotlight has fallen on those performances, rather than the list build. In many instances the Eagles were non-competitive. The losses soul destroying.

The carnage at the SCG in a 171-point thumping last year is particularly difficult to erase from the memory bank. So, too, a 116-point loss to Hawthorn in Launceston.

But the club must move on. And it has.

The next generation of players are emerging, some more quickly than others. At the 2021 draft the club brought in Campbell Chesser (14), Brady Hough (31), Rhett Bazzo (37), Jack Williams (57) and experienced Subiaco midfielder Greg Clark.

Hough is a star and played his 50^th game last week, Chesser is a work in progress and it would be great to see Bazzo get a run at it. Williams is an exciting key forward prospect who can pinch hit in the ruck and unfortunately Clarke could not nail down a spot and is back at Subiaco.

In the last two seasons the Eagles have had 12 debutants. No rival has exceeded that number, with Richmond also introducing a dozen newcomers. In 2023 Chesser, Reuben Ginbey, Noah Long, Elijah Hewett, Ryan Maric and Harry Barnett were all elevated to senior football.

All look capable of having a sustained impact at the highest level.

Long and Hewett have been missed this season. They bring footy smarts and class.

Harley Reid has led the charge in ‘24, but Loch Rawlinson, Harvey Johnson, Tyrell Dewar, Jack Hutchinson and Clay Hall have also impressed.

Tall forward Archer Reid is pressing after missing a significant block of pre-season training and the first five rounds with a knee injury. Fingers crossed he forces his way into the team in the last two rounds.

It would be good, too, if Coby Burgiel could get a look at it. Two years on the list and luck has evaded him.   

When these guys speak they talk of the bond between their cohort. That is critical.

You cannot manufacture that. If they enjoy each other’s company off the field, they will gel on it. There are some effervescent characters in that group, infectious personalities.

When the class of 2024 arrives they will find an exceptional group of contemporaries waiting for them.

While patience will be required there is evidence the wheel is turning.