WEST Coast will not use a pre-season injury crisis as the trigger for a rebuild, with coach Adam Simpson maintaining there is optimism in the Eagles' camp ahead of the new season. 

Reduced to 26 available players for Sunday's AAMI Community Series clash against Fremantle and missing up to 10 members of their best 18, the Eagles face a tricky start to 2022.

Simpson acknowledged the Eagles would need to "transition" their list in the coming years but said now was not the time to deliberately fast-track that process.

After failing to finish in the top eight last season for the first time since 2014, the coach said returning to the finals was the Eagles' goal in 2022.

"To say you're going to go into a rebuild a week before round one, you'd like to think you're a little bit more planned than that," the coach said at West Coast's season launch on Friday.  

"There's no doubt we'll transition our list in the next few years. With our full complement of players there's a lot of experience and no doubt there will be a changing of the guard.  

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"But that's not labelled as a rebuild the way we see it. We won't put a label to it. At the moment, we're using our whole list and we'll see how we go. 

"We want to qualify for finals as quick as we can."

After a summer spent tweaking his team's game style, Simpson said the Eagles needed to evolve this season and what worked in the premiership year of 2018 would no longer be successful.

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"That's not to say you throw everything out, but you do need to evolve as a club and sometimes as a coach you fall back to what you know," he said.

"If you don't evolve and grow you will die. We need to make sure we continue to do that.

"I know it doesn't seem it right now, but there's a sense of optimism in what we're doing. We've just got to get out on the track and do it."

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Captain Luke Shuey will be missing on Sunday as he returns from a hamstring injury, but the midfielder said he was targeting an intra-club hit-out next week as preparation for a possible round one return.

"I'm close. I'll resume full training next week … and we'll have a hit-out next Friday and I'll be a part of that," the Norm Smith medallist said.

"I'm trying to get myself as ready as I can before round one to give myself every chance, but I'll be thereabouts round one/two.”