West Coast Eagles pre-season training criticism from Tom Mitchell, Digi Mart USA News: West Coast players have displayed “serious mental weakness” in “utterly embarrassing” scenes on their return to pre-season training, according to Brownlow medallist and Seven analyst Tom Mitchell.
West Coast’s first- to fourth-year players were put to the test on Monday, the first official day of the Eagles’ pre-season. The session opened with a set of 11 200m sprints, after which many players collapsed past the finish line as they desperately tried to recover.
While some might see it as a sign of having given their all, Mitchell blasted the players in what he believed were seriously concerning signs for the club. “This is utterly embarrassing for the West Coast Eagles on day one of pre-season.
Look at the body language,” Mitchell posted on Instagram alongside a still from The West Australian’s video footage of the session.
“I’ve done that test before. It’s bloody hard, and don’t get me wrong, AFL pre-season is one of the hardest things you will ever do,” Mitchell wrote.
“But look at the body language. To the far left there, there’s a player on his haunches, just to his right a player lying on his back, below four players on their hands and knees and another on his back.
“That is serious mental weakness. There’s no leadership there.
Thank God they got Jack Viney to stamp out some of this crap.” Mitchell said the alarm bells should already be sounding around this Eagles group, adding that the best teams would never collapse in that fashion.
“I could not be more passionate about this. They’re basically showing all the opposition out there already that as soon as it gets hard, we’re going to roll on the ground and act like we’re dying,” he said.
“This is an embarrassing image. It’s West Coast in this example, but you see this often with a lot of teams around the league, and the best teams I ever played on have rules around this.
“Not showing weakness, again you’re allowed to forget at times and go to your hands and knees, but get straight up. This is embarrassing for the Eagles on day one.”
West Coast have been heavily criticised for their fitness and training standards amid their fall down the ladder, though they have actively looked to rectify the issue by recruiting senior players such as Viney and landing Phil Merriman as their high performance coach following his departure from the Dockers last year.
Commenters were split over Mitchell’s analysis. Some argued they would rather see players give their all than hold something back, while others noted that a pre-season in Perth is far different from cool Melbourne conditions.
Former Melbourne footballer turned high performance trainer Jack Grimes said Mitchell’s comments had missed the mark. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Tom, and I think the majority of things he says are bang on, but I think this one’s a bit off the money,” he said in a response video.
“I think it’s really easy to look at every little detail of the bottom clubs as to that’s the reason why they are where they are. I know this because I lived it at Melbourne in my time; yes, this is not the response you want to see on game day, and yes, things do get hard on game day, and you will be under fatigue.
But this is a maximal test and a very painful one.”
His response video, which has been liked by West Coast players Elliot Yeo and Tom McCarthey, showed Demons captain Max Gawn on his haunches following a similar test. “You will never get to this level of hurt on game day no matter how hard you think you’re running,” Grimes continued.
“I’m sure if the footage kept rolling we would have seen those players get up and get around each other after they’ve taken that moment to gather themselves. So unless Max Gawn is an embarrassing and poor leader, I don’t see this as an issue.”
However, Mitchell had an ally in triple AFLW premiership player and Swan Districts product Chelsea Randall, who commented: “100% agree with this.”
