West Coast coach Adam Simpson flags new look Eagles for 2022 as Willie Rioli shows he’s not lost touch

West Coast coach Adam Simpson believes a bigger summer can pave the way for improvement next season, as he vowed to unveil a new-look Eagles in 2022. Simpson said an overhaul of the football department, including the arrival of assistants Jarrad Schofield and Matthew Knights, had contributed to an off-season re-think after the club missed the finals for the first time since 2014. “Every season’s a new beginning and it does feel a little bit different this year,” Simpson said. “New relationships, new coaches, new philosophies, new strategies – all those things you try and bring together and make it look simple.” Simpson was happy to have the full squad together before Christmas, but said “January is when the real stuff starts”. “I mean no excuses on last year. But a little bit disjointed in your off-season, it doesn’t help,” he said. “I don’t think we started the pre-season until mid-January last year. And we had lots of players on the sidelines. “That’s not an excuse. But to have a really good go at it, especially early in the year, you want to have a good look at pre-season.” West Coast’s full squad returned to training on Monday, with the current list missing only Victorian recruit Campbell Chesser, who is driving to Perth and will undergo quarantine so he can join training in January. The Eagles will fill out their list ahead of the pre-season supplemental selection period deadline in March. “(Chesser) is going to send Christmas in quarantine, which is tough for a 17-year-old, but it shows you his commitment,” Simpson said. “It wasn’t something we demanded at all. I think family’s pretty important, especially over Christmas period. But he’s pretty keen to get here.” Liam Ryan will sit out of main training for a fortnight to guard against a recurrence of the shin stress reaction that cost him five games last season, while fellow small forward Willie Rioli was on track to return in the pre-season games after more than two years out. “He’s connected really well with the players. It feels like he hasn’t missed a beat,” Simpson said of Rioli. “I can’t wait to see him play, to be honest. Some of the things he does at training. He hasn’t lost his talent, put it that way.” Simpson said the Eagles needed to be cautious with Ryan, who had looked in excellent physical condition before being taken out of training this week. “We’ve just got to be careful for what happened last year,” he said. “He came back hot. He came back really hard and trained really well. So we’ve just got to manage his body. “So we’ve just backed him off a little bit for the next four or five sessions, then we’ll get going from there.” Simpson said four-time All-Australian Jeremy McGovern should be a new man in 2022 following surgery on the hip issue that troubled him throughout last season. “He’s tracking really well,” he said. “It’s been a successful operation on his hip. It’s freed him up a lot. So hopefully we see a better version, which will be great.”