Adrian Barich: To Adam Simpson, one of the finest fellas to coach at West Coast
![Adrian Barich for STM.](https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/C-15253292/3332c2457569317961cbc4f77ddcd42439a2fc5d-16x9-x0y252w3208h1805.jpg?imwidth=810&impolicy=wan_v3)
See what happens when people don’t listen to me, people get sacked.
Obviously I’ve got my tongue firmly planted in my cheek but as it turned out — young people nowadays, they never listen.
You can’t put an old head on young shoulders so I guess it’s of little surprise that the Eagles players didn’t heed our warnings.
We told them that if there wasn’t an adequate response after that devastating loss to Hawthorn, the pressure on their coach would ratchet up dramatically.
“It’d be Def-Con 4 back home” was my quote to Eagles co-captain Oscar Allen, who then proceeded to tell me he hadn’t heard that expression before but he thinks he knew what I meant.
He didn’t though.
I should have explained further and said “mate, if your boys don’t play like men possessed in the next game against Melbourne, the coach could be out of the club”.
All week the WA media had been demanding a full-throttle effort against the Demons, or Simmo was in trouble. They either thought we didn’t know what we were talking about or they just didn’t have it in them.
Everything came to a head on Monday as one of the finest fellas to coach at the club has lost his job.
If you read my column last Sunday, I summarised all the reasons that Adam Simpson might part ways with West Coast, but again, either the Eagles players didn’t read my article or thought I was off my head.
It made for a huge couple of days in Barra-Land and one I wished I truly wished had panned out another way. I have no love of the regular public executions that football seems to deliver.
No one seems to get the fairytale ending we all crave in this modern world.
To do well, an AFL coach needs incredible self-belief. They live by proving the doubters wrong, so they hardly ever fall on their own sword.
Not may industries in Australia would have such a small number of positions available, either. There are only 18 senior AFL coaching jobs.
But Simmo’s legacy will be vast and grand. Who will ever forget the 2018 premiership, not to mention the 2015 grand final season (in just his second year). And when you add six consecutive finals series to his achievements, you can see why he holds a special place at the club and deserves to be treated as Eagles royalty.
To be technical for one moment, he also has a huge tactical intellect and devised Simmo’s Web (known in the east as the Weagles Web). It was a defensive system that meant none of his defenders actually played exclusively on any opponent but effectively guarded space, if that makes sense.
Simpson instructs his troops to mark the players who can impact the contest, but those who can’t, are ignored in preference of guarding space. It seems straightforward now, but really was a break with the old man-on-man set-ups of the past and it takes a lot of communication between the players.
You also need to be able to read the play, so you can decide when to leave an opponent and head to another area.
Just watch star back Jeremy McGovern closely next time West Coast play and you’ll understand what I mean — he is the greatest exponent of this web theory.
It’s called team defence now and Simpson protege, Dockers coach Justin Longmuir, is the new coaching king of this way of playing.
Yes, history will be kind to Adam Simpson and I for one believe he should one day return to footy — he’s that special.
Hope, however, is what the fans need now. Without hope we are nothing, we cease to live, and that’s what was happening at West Coast and their many supporters during the last three seasons.
Someone is about to be handed the “keys to the Ferrari” and it’s time for the Eagles to climb the ladder.
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