WEST Coast coach John Worsfold has ruled out off-loading premiership stars Dean Cox and Daniel Kerr as the club looks to continue an extensive rebuild.

But he says the Eagles will consider trading for mature players during this year’s exchange period, with their first-round draft pick on the table.

West Coast has implemented an aggressive youth policy in recent years, recruiting seven top-20 draft picks at the last three national drafts, and Worsfold said the time was now right to target readymade players.

If the 16th-placed Eagles can’t drag themselves off the bottom of the ladder they will be have pick No.4 at the 2010 NAB AFL Draft to barter with, and Worsfold said a genuine small forward was at the top of his wish list.

“We’ll look at trading in players,” Worsfold said from Subiaco Oval on Wednesday. “If players are keen to look for fresh opportunities then potentially we can offer those.

“But it has to fit with a lot of criteria and then there’s a lot of work that has to be done to get trades finalised.

“You give up pick four if you get someone in who you think is equivalent. We’ll look at possible trades.”

Worsfold said All-Australian ruckman Cox would “absolutely” be at West Coast next year and using him as trade bait had not been discussed at list management meetings.

He said the club had spoken extensively about players it would like to trade in, but said it would be impertinent to name its prime targets during the season.

“There are players that are out of contract that may be asking to be traded out of clubs,” he said.

“We’ve talked about trading in a lot of players - there’s quite a few on the wish list - [but] players are playing footy at the moment, it would be disrespectful.”

West Coast recruited prospective small forwards Gerrick Weedon, Ryan Neates and Lewis Broome during last year’s draft period, but Worsfold said finding one in the mould of Hawthorn’s Cyril Rioli or Fremantle goalsneak Hayden Ballantyne was the priority.

He said targeting Port Adelaide’s Daniel Motlop was a possibility.

“We’re looking for a real dangerous small forward to complement the set-up we’ve currently got,” he said. “That’s one of the things we’re looking at.”

West Coast, which is currently searching Australia-wide for a new list manager, has a midfield stacked with highly touted youngsters and Worsfold said that was not an area of concern for the club.

“I think with some of the younger ones coming through, if Kerr can get up and spend some time through the midfield … we start to get a few that can rotate through,” he said. “At the moment we’ve been very restricted.

“Chris Masten hasn’t really been able to string games together to the point where we say, ‘Now he’s ready to go into the midfield for longer periods’. He was probably getting to that point and now he’s going to miss a week or two.

“I think those guys in four years’ time, when they’re up to 80 to 90 games, they’re going to be a very mature and strong midfield.”