What does 2021 hold for Will Schofield?

Who cares? He’s got a final to play.

That is essentially the answer Schofield gave while chatting to Dwayne Russell on SEN yesterday.

In spite of announcing his imminent retirement last week, the veteran West Coast defender said hanging up the boots was the last thing on his mind leading in to Saturday night’s do or die elimination final versus Collingwood.

“Everyone is thinking about winning their first final,” a candid Schofield said.

“If you’re not, you’re not in the right game. You’ve got to have the mindset of winning and winning means advancing.  

“That’s where the motivation comes from. The extra motivation is winning and playing more finals. Well, it is for me. It’s what I’ve lived for my career, playing finals footy.

“I was lucky enough to win (a premiership) a couple of years ago, but those flags are bloody hard to come by and you want to make sure you make the most of it every year.”

Regardless of the result, Saturday night will be the final time Schofield takes the field in front of the blue and gold army.

The Eagles life member was looking forward to farewelling the club’s loyal fans, who he believed brought an energy like no other fan base across the nation.

After playing so many matches in front of restricted crowds in 2020, Schofield said he appreciated the role fans played in the game more than ever.

“It’s huge, I’m not going to lie,” he said.

“You speak to any player, it’s very different playing in a stadium with no fans or minimal fans in it. It’s a different feeling.

“Coming home to Optus, traditionally we’ve played well in front of our home crowd. We’ve got a terrific supporter base over there who have been extremely loyal.

“I saw West Coast are on top of the membership ladder a couple of weeks ago, so we’re extremely lucky with the support we’ve got from our footy club.”

And while the Eagles will have the crowd on their side Saturday night, Schofield knows that alone won’t be enough to dispose of an energetic Collingwood outfit.

He expected the contest to be a battle between two teams trying to play their way.

“We’ll obviously try and play our own way as well and bring our own brand of footy, which hopefully holds up in finals time,” Schofield said.

“Collingwood has been a good team for a long time and I think they will back their own brand of footy in. I don’t think you’re going to change too much coming into finals. They’ve made finals for a reason and they’re going to be trying to play the brand of footy that they’ve brought all year I would have thought.

“But if new things happen we’ve had plenty of practice this year to deal with things we haven’t dealt with before, so I’m sure we’ll be fine. Especially as a back line, you’ve got to be adaptable. You don’t get those one on ones or match-ups that you’ve had in years gone by, so you end up playing on a lot of different players.

“We will do our prep as usual and hope for the best.”