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Sport Nation
Detailing West Coast's crisis meeting amid winless start
Connor Scanlon • May 4th, 2025 4:45 pm
West Coast’s humbling Round 5 loss to Carlton sparked a fiery crisis meeting, with players calling a meeting for the whole club - and what occurred may have been exactly what the Eagles needed.
According to SEN WA's Tim Gossage, the intense meeting was well received by the players who took plenty from the discussions.
“This meeting was intense,” Gossage said on SEN WA Breakfast.
“Being described by the player that I spoke to, as intense but measured.
“And they all, the whole group, not just the players, got a lot out of it.”
The extended leadership group led the charge, bringing in coaching staff and football department figures to air out concerns around communication and performance expectations.
“The players were the ones who called it, but they didn’t walk into the room to say, ‘We’re blaming you Andrew McQualter,’” Gossage clarified.
“The Carlton performance was the tip of the iceberg.
“They thought, well instead of just tinkering around the edges, let’s all just sit in a room like men.”
Former Eagle Hamish Brayshaw said this kind of player-led intervention isn’t new for the Eagles, and it’s not a bad sign.
“We had one at the start of the hub in 2020,” Brayshaw recalled.
“We won a flag in ‘18, we were good in ‘19, we started 2020 travelling to Queensland and we lost the first three or four games of the hub.
“We had most of the list, Simmo (Adam Simpson) and the coaching staff were there, and we just nutted out what we are expecting of each other.”
Rather than a culture review or behavioural intervention, Gossage said the meeting was focused purely on football.
“It was just about playing performance,” he said.
“This was not about culture, this was not about who’s misbehaving.
“This is more about ‘what are we doing as a team?’, how are we going with the lines of communication, selection, performance, (and) analysis.”
The results since, which includes a two-point loss to Essendon, suggests the crisis meeting worked to some degree.
“I think we’ve seen some spike in the last two weeks,” Gossage said.
“(We saw) a response,” Brayshaw agreed.
“We saw a spike straight away (against Essendon), and they were actually okay against Hawthorn,” Gossage added.
Despite external speculation, Gossage shut down any talk of unrest between players and coach.
“I think people will construe it the way they want to construe it,” he exclaimed.
“‘Oh, you know, the players are angry with the coach, the wheels are off, the coach has lost the players’.
“I don’t think so.”
