WEST Coast's new draftees are all capable of playing senior football this season, according to coach Adam Simpson.

 

The Eagles only had one of their 2013 draftees play last season with first-round pick Dom Sheed managing 10 games in his first year. He played six of them as the starting substitute.

 

But Malcolm Karpany, Tom Barrass, Dylan Main and rookies Will Maginness and Rowen Powell spent the entire season in the WAFL playing both senior and reserves football for East Perth. And Main was the only one of the five not to experience injury issues.

 

Simpson said on Monday that his new crop of recruits from the 2014 NAB AFL draft; Liam Duggan, Tom Lamb, Jackson Nelson, Damien Cavka and Alec Waterman, were all capable of lining up for West Coast this season.

 

"I think they've all got the ability to play senior football this year, which is really pleasing," Simpson said.

 

"I think you can tell a lot within the first few weeks about how they go about it and their maturity and I'm pleased with all of them. 


 

"What I'm seeing is the ability to handle situations already that perhaps first-year players don't normally handle.

 

"But it is a longer-term approach so I won't be throwing them in the deep end. But at the same time if they're ready to play we'll play them."

 

 

The Eagles' draftees were absent from training on Monday as they participated in the AFL Players' Association induction camp at Etihad Stadium.   

 

New assistant coach Dean Cox was sent with the group to assist with their training in Melbourne, although Simpson believes it is beneficial for the young players to have a lighter period following a brutal return to training last week when temperatures hit a record 44 degrees in Perth.

 

Simpson felt he might have erred last week as the players took awhile to recover from their first session back.

 

"We didn't have a good day," Simpson said.

 

"The boys were cooked very early in the day. I probably left them out there for a bit too long."

 

The second-year coach is still drilling the fundamentals of ball movement, however he is planning on introducing more match simulation and scenario-based training in the second half of pre-season.

 

"We didn't really get into the nitty gritty of scenarios within games and what to do and how to handle those pressures," Simpson said. 

 

"It doesn't guarantee you any more wins but we get an opportunity to train that a little bit this year and still progress what we educated on last year.

 

"We haven't reinvented the wheel, we've just had little bit more time to develop other areas of our game plan."