Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Football
Netball
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
Duffield: The most interesting player in West Coast rebuild
Mark Duffield • August 2nd, 2025 12:00 pm
The last month of this AFL home and away season may yet be the most important month of Andrew McQualter’s first year as coach.
It shapes as a long month – they have been stripped of most of their veterans – Dom Sheed and Jeremy McGovern have retired. Elliot Yeo won’t play for the club this year. Jake Waterman won’t play again this year. Oscar Allen might not play for the club again with constant speculation that a rival club – most probably Brisbane – will win his services as a restricted free agent at the end of the season.
So when we look at the experienced players McQualter will have at his disposal in this last month – for games against Melbourne, Adelaide, the Western Bullodgs and Sydney - there will be Jamie Cripps, Liam Duggan, Tom Cole, Liam Ryan, Liam Baker – and Jack Graham when he returns from suspension for the last two weeks of the season.
And now it has been confirmed that Harley Reid will not play again either. Let’s just for now park the talk about Harley’s contract and how that might unfold and work out what this means for McQualter as he tries to put a team on the park.
As they say – every crisis comes with opportunity – and the opportunity here is for more talent discovery. And on that front – one of the most interesting players on the Eagles list is Campbell Chesser.
He has barely had a season since being drafted where he has not been affected by injury. He had his start to this season delayed for two months because of ankle surgery. But he has been solid in two of his last three matches for the Eagles in the WAFL. Campbell Chesser is still only 22 years old.
Every list management decision West Coast will take at the end of this season is critical. Even if we make the assumption that Harley Reid will still be at the club next season – McGovern and Sheed have to be replaced, Allen will probably have to be replaced and there will be a raft of players at the younger end of the Eagles list who will be placed on the chopping block and assessed for retention of replacement.
Chesser is one of those. He played a total of 32 games in 2023 and 2024 – it must be said many of them played on faith and potential rather than form, but it also must be said that almost all were played in the difficult wing position in a team getting carved up most weeks.
As well as the other youngsters the Eagles will want to take a look at – Tom Gross, Harvey Johnston, Lucca Grego, Noah Long, Hamish Davis, Malakai Champion and Loch Rawlinson among them – they NEED to take another look at Chesser at the top level before they make an end of season call on him.
I am not saying he is going to make it – but you need to be very sure he is not going to make it before you kick a first-round draft pick to the kerb at the rough end of one of the more challenging list rebuilds an AFL club has faced in recent years.
Who is the player you want to see get an opportunity in the last month of this season?
