We need to learn to win. It might be table tennis.
In the long arc of a football club's life, there are seasons that demand more than tactical adjustment — they demand a reckoning with identity. West Coast's 1-22 finish, the worst in their history, is such a moment: a third wooden spoon in four years that has forced coach Andrew McQualter to ask not merely how his team plays, but how it thinks, competes, and understands winning itself. The answer he is reaching for is not found in grand gestures, but in the quiet, deliberate reconstruction of a culture that has slowly emptied out across every level of the organisation.
- A 67-point defeat to Sydney on Saturday night sealed the Eagles' worst season on record — 1 win from 23 games — leaving the club staring at a systemic failure that runs from the senior list all the way down to their WAFL affiliate, which finished last for the fifth year running.
- The most unsettling detail isn't the losses themselves, but the pattern within them: West Coast led Sydney at halftime, only to concede thirteen goals to one after the break — a collapse that McQualter identified as the defining wound of the season, a catastrophic gap between the team's ceiling and its floor.
- McQualter is refusing to treat this as a talent problem alone, proposing instead to rewire the competitive instincts of his players through unconventional means — table tennis, handball, and any training context that forces players to practise the feeling of wanting to win.
- The club enters the off-season holding the No. 1 national draft pick and facing a full round of exit meetings, with McQualter insisting the coming months must be 'nailed' — in preparation, education, and cultural reconstruction — if 2026 is to look anything different.
West Coast's season ended on Saturday night with a 67-point loss to Sydney at Optus Stadium — 118 to 51 — and with it came a record no one wanted: a 1-22 finish, the worst in club history, and a third wooden spoon in four years.
Coach Andrew McQualter sat with that reality and looked forward. Not to excuses, but to the off-season ahead and the work it demands. His diagnosis was precise: the Eagles can compete — they led Sydney at halftime, they've challenged top-four sides — but they cannot sustain it. When they play poorly, they don't just lose. They collapse. Thirteen goals to one in the second half against Sydney is the image that captures the season.
The failure isn't confined to the senior group. West Coast's WAFL affiliate finished last for the fifth consecutive year, winning just twice. The culture of winning has drained from the entire organisation, and McQualter knows that telling players to try harder won't refill it.
His response is deliberate rather than dramatic. He wants to build competitiveness into the texture of training itself — through table tennis, handball, whatever activity teaches players to hate losing in any context and to internalise winning as habit rather than accident. It's an acknowledgment that broken cultures aren't repaired by doing the same things more intensely.
Exit meetings lie ahead, and so does the No. 1 national draft pick — a rare piece of good fortune amid the wreckage. McQualter kept returning to one word: nail. Nail the off-season. Nail the preparation. For the first time in months, the Eagles have time to think carefully about what comes next.
West Coast's season ended Saturday night not with a bang but with a 67-point evisceration. Sydney came to Optus Stadium and dismantled them 118 to 51, and when the final siren sounded, the Eagles had secured their place in the record books—but not the kind anyone wants. A 1-22 season. The worst in club history. The third wooden spoon in four years.
Andrew McQualter sat with that reality and did what a coach does: he looked forward. But not to next week or next month. He looked to the off-season stretching ahead, to the work that needs doing in the quiet months before football resumes. And he made a promise that sounded almost defiant in its ordinariness: his team would learn to win again, even if it meant teaching them through table tennis and handball games.
The loss to Sydney was particularly bitter because the Eagles had actually led at halftime. They'd matched a grand finalist, pushed a genuinely good team. But then the second half arrived and the scoreboard became a weapon. Thirteen goals to one after the break. That's the pattern McQualter kept returning to—not that his team can't compete, but that they can't sustain it. They have a ceiling, he said, and it's reasonable. They've challenged top-four teams. But the floor, the gap between their best and their worst, is a chasm. When they play poorly, they don't just lose. They get demolished.
The problem runs deeper than the senior list. West Coast's WAFL affiliate finished last for the fifth consecutive year, winning just twice. This isn't a one-level failure. It's systemic. The culture of winning has drained from the entire organization, and McQualter knows you can't rebuild that by simply telling players to try harder.
So he's proposing something different. Not revolutionary, exactly, but deliberate. Build competitiveness into the fabric of training itself. Make every activity—even the ones that have nothing to do with football—a place where players learn what it feels like to win and what it takes to get there. Table tennis. Handball. Whatever works. The goal is to transform the players into people who hate losing in any context, who've internalized winning as a habit rather than an outcome.
McQualter spoke about the months ahead with the tone of someone who understands the stakes. Exit meetings are coming. The national draft looms, and West Coast holds the No. 1 pick—a silver lining to the season's wreckage. But he kept emphasizing the same word: nail. They need to nail the off-season. Nail the training. Nail the education and preparation. Deep dive into everything. Figure out ways to move forward.
There's no guarantee any of it works. Wooden spoons don't turn into premierships because a coach introduces table tennis to training. But there's also something honest in McQualter's approach—an acknowledgment that you can't fix a broken culture by doing the same things you've always done. The Eagles have a long off-season ahead, and for the first time in months, they have time to think about what comes next.
Notable Quotes
We need to build ways to compete and win and learn how to win. It might be table tennis, it might be handball games at training, but we've got to learn to win.— Andrew McQualter, West Coast coach
We've got to bridge the gap between our floor and our ceiling. Our ceiling has been pretty reasonable this year and we've challenged some good teams, but the gap when we've played poorly, we just get too much score put on against us.— Andrew McQualter
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When McQualter talks about table tennis and handball, is he serious, or is that just a metaphor for something else?
He's serious in the sense that he genuinely believes the mechanism matters less than the principle. The Eagles have lost the habit of winning. They need to practice it in contexts where the stakes feel real but the pressure is different. Table tennis teaches you something about competing that running drills doesn't.
But doesn't that risk looking desperate? Like he's grasping at anything?
Maybe. But desperate is what you are when you finish 1-22. At least he's naming the actual problem—it's not talent, it's culture. The WAFL team also finished last. That tells you something's broken in how the organization thinks about winning.
What's the real issue then? Is it the players or the system?
Both. The players have lost confidence, and the system hasn't given them reasons to regain it. McQualter's saying: we need to rebuild that from the ground up, starting with the smallest competitions, the ones that don't matter, so that when the big ones come, winning feels familiar.
Does he have time to do that before 2026?
That's the question. He's got the off-season and the draft pick. If he can use those months to genuinely shift how the club thinks about competition, maybe. But if it's just talk, the 2026 season will look a lot like this one.