West Coast list boss Rohan O’Brien says Eagles aren’t in denial over rebuild after disastrous 2022 AFL season

West Coast recruiting and list supremo Rohan O’Brien says the club is not in denial about the need to rebuild, but “an unbelievable set of circumstances” had made assessing their position more difficult. The last-placed Eagles, who have selected the second-oldest team of the round, will equal their worst losing streak of eight defeats if they go down to fellow strugglers Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Saturday. In an exclusive interview with The West Australian, O’Brien said: - The club will defer list decisions until the end of the season, cautioning against overreacting to the disastrous first half of the campaign; - The prospect of trading out senior players to boost their national draft hand had not been discussed; - It was possible the Eagles could return to the finals by 2024 – maintaining their proud record of never missing September for more than three consecutive seasons. Despite key leadership figures shying away from publicly using the word rebuild until recently, amid a run of just three wins from their past 20 games, O’Brien insisted the club had not been taken by surprise. But he said the unprecedented maelstrom of concurrent injury and COVID crises made it difficult to assess how bad things actually were. “When you talk in terms of a rebuild, I think maybe there was a perception that we’ve struggled to come to terms with it,” O’Brien said. “But we were planning for this last year too. Which is why we did trades to bring in extra picks this year. You kind of try to plan a year or two ahead. “You can call it whatever you like – but ‘rebuild’ is probably the usual one that gets thrown around. If that’s what we need to do, that’s what we’ll do. “And you can’t do everything at once. I think as (coach) Adam (Simpson) said, we know where it’s at and we’re going to take a long-term view with all our decisions. “You’ve got to be careful to make the right decisions and so far it’s been an unbelievable set of circumstances. That doesn’t mean that we ignore it, by the way, but we’ve just got to make sure that maybe we get a little bit of continuity together, hopefully we show some improvement and then we’re best prepared to make the decisions we need to.” O’Brien, who has spent three decades at West Coast, said it was hard to say when the team would be capable of returning to the finals, but didn’t discount 2024. The Eagles, whose longest streak out of the finals was between 2008-10 after the premature losses of Chris Judd and Ben Cousins, finished ninth last year and are on track to miss for a second consecutive season in 2022. “I think until we get back on an even keel in terms of availability and continuity, it’s hard to know,” O’Brien. “Hopefully we don’t (spend more than three seasons out of the finals), but we’ve just got to keep that bigger picture in mind and work through it.” West Coast will have to conduct a significant player cull at the end of the season ahead of their critical assault on the national draft, given they are carrying extra players after moving injured quartet Tom Cole, Campbell Chesser, Oscar Allen and Luke Edwards to the inactive list. Based on the ladder at the halfway point, the Eagles have picks 1, 19 and 26 in the national draft, thanks to gaining Port Adelaide’s second-round pick in a live trade last year. “To have a good hand this year will certainly be a pleasant change, for sure,” O’Brien said. “You’d much rather be winning games and not have a good hand. But when it comes along, you take it.” West Coast could create five or six top-30 selections by getting creative, including splitting their first pick, trading next year’s first or second-rounder for one this year or auctioning off the opening pick of the second day should they hold it. O’Brien said there had not been any talks regarding trading out a senior player. “We haven’t discussed that at this stage yet. That’s not in our planning,” he said. And while there was no specific plan to make “aggressive decisions” on boosting their number of early picks, the Eagles would be open to opportunities. “We’re open to anything really,” O’Brien said. “Those opportunities if they come along, like they did last year, we’ll certainly take it. But there’s nothing planned where we’re making aggressive decisions to get multiple number of picks in one year. “We’ve got a reasonable hand now. If we can enhance that, that will be good, and we’ll have a better picture of that as the end of the year comes along.”