When the club endured a season like the West Coast Eagles did in 2020, the pain of the loss to Collingwood was more intense.

Without West Coast – and Fremantle – committing to the hub concept the unique season we witnessed might never have re-started after the hiatus forced upon the competition following the opening round.

The Eagles endured two stints in Queensland, learned valuable lessons from the first experience and finished a place out of the top four by percentage.   It meant a home final in the opening week, but they could not capitalise on the opportunity, with the Pies enduring in an epic match by a solitary, painful behind.

It brought a premature end to the club’s campaign that was tough for everyone within the inner sanctum to endure.

Defender Liam Duggan, who elevated his game to the next level, emphasised by his first top five finish in the John Worsfold Medal, was shattered by the sudden end to the campaign.

“It’s tough to swallow,” Duggan said in the days after the loss. “It has been a weird week. I feel like we should be training every day and I feel like I have got more in me, that I want to give.

“It was an abrupt end which is really disappointing. It didn’t surprise us how Collingwood came out and played, but I would have loved an extra five minutes. Definitely disappointing because we felt like we had something more to give.

“Simmo sums it up every year that when you don’t win a premiership,  like  17 clubs don’t, you’re disappointed. There is always that fire, especially after being there in 2018 and knowing what that feels like, you crave that feeling again.

“The fire is there because it’s not the way you want to finish a year.”

While the loss to Collingwood was disappointing, one of the positives out of the strangest, most stressful season in history was the evolution of Duggan as a front line player and a genuine, emerging leader within the next generation of players.

“I reckon it would be my most consistent season in footy and I don’t know what to put it down to. Coming to age a little bit, feeling a little more confident in myself to get the output that I was needing and expecting from myself?” he offered.

“It’s hard to put a finger on what it was, but something I felt I needed to do was have a better year, a more consistent year. Thankfully I was able to do that to some degree.

“I aspire to be a leader; whether that’s with a title or not that’s fine with me. Something  I focus on is allowing leadership to naturally occur and to lead in a way that’s just me. We have seen that with Bunga (Shannon Hurn) and now with (Luke) Shuey.

“They are just being themselves and that’s good enough leadership for us. I don’t need a title to try and be a leader, but as I get older I want to be a leader for the club in some aspect. For me it is just allowing that to progress and happen naturally.

“You’ve gotta be a bit careful to make sure you’re not trying too hard to be a leader. If you’re hearing a little bit of outside noise that you might be, it’s important to take a step back and let it take a natural course.

“You can’t push or force those kinds of things.”

When the competition went into recess and players were allowed only to train in pairs due to COVID protocols, Duggan’s training partner was Nic Naitanui. Perhaps it is no coincidence that both men excelled, with Naitanui winning his first John Worsfold Medal.

And Duggan was also returned to the midfield when the club hit an injury crisis in the second hub, when the club was based at Sanctuary Cove.

That relationship with Naitanui, strengthened when training together, might have helped the cause when Duggan stepped back into the engine room with the likes of Shuey, Jack Redden, Elliot Yeo, Dom Sheed and Mark Hutchings out of play.

“It was awesome to see Nic just get a full run at a year,” Duggan enthused. “In a pre- season, two pre-seasons in a way, when we were doing our training he worked really hard and got the recognition he deserved for this year.

"He’s put himself back at the top of board in terms of ruckmen in the league and it has been really good to see him to go to yet another level.

“For me going back into the midfield has been something that Simmo, the other coaches and I talk about at the end of every year. And then you look at our midfield and it’s stacked with talent.

“It looks hard to get in there and then a few of the boys went down, so it was my turn to just get a little pinch hit. I didn’t do the greatest job in there, but I enjoyed it and it was good fun to get in there and work a little closer with someone like TK (Tim Kelly).

“Gaffy was running the show when I was in there, so it was a good experience for me.

“It just got the taste back a little bit for midfield, but I do love the back line and I feel like naturally I’m playing my better footy there at this stage of my career.

“There’s definitely scope to go back into the midfield at some  stage, but it’s going to be tough to leave the backline when that happens. I love being part of that group.”