Paul Hasleby believes it is time for West Coast to move on from coach Adam Simpson.
It comes following the club’s smashing at the hands of Hawthorn on Sunday afternoon, despite being near full strength.
Though the Eagles have improved in 2024, Hasleby feels the two parties will still part ways when his contract expires at the end of 2025.
Because of this, and the club’s need for a fresh perspective at the helm, the Fremantle great believes a decision should come at the end of this season.
“They just couldn’t afford to have a mulligan given the circumstances around this game with all their best players back, at home, 50,000 there, they’d lost four in a row – and they were smashed from start to finish,” Hasleby told SEN WA’s The Run Home.
“Rarely do you see a team that is smashed without showing any fight for four quarters. Normally you get some form of response. That wasn’t the case. It was a complete training drill for Hawthorn.
“Unfortunately, and I’ve thought this for a while, it is time for change at the Eagles and Adam Simpson has been a fantastic coach and you can never take the premiership away from him, but all good things come to an end.
“I don’t feel he’s going to be the coach past next year. He’s contracted until the end of 2025, that would be 12 completed seasons at that football club and given the decline we’ve seen, I feel at that point they will make the decision to go forward.
“And if you’re making that decision, then I think the time is right this year to make that decision and rebuild with a coach who is going to take the group forward for the next five years and give that new coach a chance to have his imprint on the list.
“That would allow that new coach to come in with a clean slate and somebody hopefully prepared to make really hard decisions for this football club and that is what is required right now.”
Just how quickly a team like Hawthorn has overtaken the Eagles in the speed of their rebuild adds to Hasleby’s frustration with the situation.
“Two years ago we sat here and declared Hawthorn’s list was the worst list we’d seen for a number of years and it was going to take five years for them,” he said.
“Now, they made some really tough decisions and that was on the back of Sam Mitchell coming in and replacing their best coach of all time.
“They made tough decisions on Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O’Meara, Liam Shiels, Jack Gunston (who returned) – but now when you watch the Hawks, they have an identifiable game style and I don’t see that from West Coast.
“Adam Simpson has had a fair bit of time now with this rebuild. Yes, they’ve had a lot of injuries but on the weekend that excuse wasn’t there.
“Look at where Hawthorn was two years ago, West Coast was around the same mark, probably with a better list, and West Coast’s senior players are still better than Hawthorn’s.
“I saw a lot of bickering on the field for the Eagles and a lot of disappointing efforts and given what was on the line and Elliot Yeo and the death of his father, I just thought it was a really disappointing performance and they need change at that footy club.”
West Coast travels to Melbourne for a rare encounter at the MCG on Sunday afternoon when they face the Demons.