A physical session at Subiaco Oval on Monday morning, that saw the likes of Chris Judd, Chad Fletcher, Ben Cousins, Daniel Chick, Dean Cox and David Wirrpanda in the thick of the action, was complemented by an impressive skills display.
And the young line-up that lost to a more experienced Carlton side in Alice Springs on Friday night could be boosted by the return of most of those established stars for its final practice match against Hawthorn at Leederville Oval.
“Most of the players that missed on the weekend, we’ll play this week,” Sumich said. “We probably didn’t really want to have them all out in one game. It just worked out that way.
“Losing to Fremantle first up and having another opportunity to play here, we wanted to play them but because we knew we were going to Alice it was a good reason to not play them in that game.
“Carlton had a pretty good side in and a few of our young blokes probably weren’t experienced to go with them to the death knock. That’s why they won by three or four goals. On top of that you’re looking at bigger bodies compared to some of our young kids coming through the system in their first year and second year.”
While Fletcher (collarbone) and Darren Glass (knee) won’t play against Hawthorn but will be ready come round one, exciting small forward Ashley Sampi is pressing for a return after recovering from surgery for compartment syndrome.
“He’s been terrific with his efforts at training,” Sumich said. “Today we put him through the midfield and when he’s around the footy he’s very hard to beat. He’s doing extra work outside our program and that’s with Stuart Cormack, our fitness bloke, so he’s doing everything possible just to get himself in shape.
“That extra (work) is what he missed through the pre-season because of the operation he had. At AFL level he’s probably behind the eight-ball just marginally. He missed a little bit through the pre-season so he probably wouldn’t get through 120 minutes of AFL football, but not many do.
“It probably depends on what we want. If he plays for us (this week), he’ll probably only get a half to three quarters. If he’s going to play at South Fremantle he’ll get a full game. That’s something as a match committee that we’ll really have to talk about on Wednesday. The gut feeling is he’ll more than likely go back to South but that could change.”
Sumich also acknowledged that the extra spice seen on the track in the last fortnight has been fuelled by the players’ disappointing effort against Fremantle to kick off the pre-season competition.
“They know where they’re at,” he said. “We were very disappointed with our efforts against Fremantle. As much as we were probably a little bit behind them, there was no excuse for the way we performed. It was well below par and we were a bit concerned. I think the players were.
“That’s why they’ve upped the ante now and are really looking forward to the season coming.”
West Coast plays Hawthorn at Leederville Oval on Friday at 6pm.
