Duff: The significance of West Coast's drought-breaking win

I have information for you this morning that puts the significance of West Coast’s win over North Melbourne – and the need for more like it – in context.

In order to build unity within a team and to bond your players to a team – you need belief. And in order to build belief – you need to win games – like the Eagles did against the Kangaroos – their first win in 308 days.

You need that belief to retain players who have been drafted to a WA club from the east coast – and while we look at established clubs over there who might be trying to poach players – a story in the Herald Sun yesterday shone a very bright light on the sort of threat that the new Tassie Devils might pose in terms of luring players.

The story from the Herald Sun's senior footy writer Jay Clark put GWS midfielder Tom Green at the top of a Tassie Devils hit list and outlined the kind of deal the Devils may be in a position to offer him.

Green, of course, will not play at all this year after injuring his ACL in the pre-season. He is still considered a strong chance to succeed Toby Greene as the next Giants captain. He has publicly stated he is happy to stay at the club.

But here are the kind of numbers that will make the Giants – and any other club trying to retain stars coming out of contract – very nervous.

The Devils – according to Jay Clark - could lure Green at the end of the 2027 season – in which he would be a restricted free agent – on a contract offer topping $15 million.

The Devils, argues Clark, could effectively blow the Giants out of the water on Green with a lucrative eight-year deal worth more than $1.8 million a season on top of a $1 or $2 million sign-on bonus.

So this is how it would work – the Giants can lure up to 18 uncontracted players – at a maximum of one per AFL club. Clubs who lose players to the Devils will get compensation picks in return.

The Devils will also have a $5 million sign on war chest – which means a player like Green not only gets the big contract his existing club can’t match – he also gets the sugar hit money on top to get him to sign.

This sort of start up deal is the reason why Fremantle moved to sign most of its top liners on long term deals which will stretch out beyond the start of the Devils.

That does not necessarily make those deals a good thing. Sean Darcy is on a long term deal and is fighting for a spot in the team. Hayden Young’s deal is as long tern as anyone’s and he is battling to show his body can withstand the rigours of AFL footy - especially as a midfielder.

For the Dockers – finals in 2022 and 2025 and a near miss in 2024 have fuelled belief that their list is ready to contend. Hopefully the belief is shown to be justified this year.

At West Coast – a few years behind the Dockers in their own rebuild schedule – the key is putting enough runs on the board early enough to fuel the belief that their own climb is coming.

To that end – I reckon for the first time since the Eagles list collapsed at the end of 2021 – we are seeing evidence that there is enough young quality on the list to climb. Harley Reid, Reuben Ginbey. Archer Reid. Jobe Shanahan, Cooper Duff-Tytler, Willem Duursma, Josh Lindsay, and Bo Allan might all be at various stages of development, but all have the potential to become top line players, 200 game players – what some of us like to call A-Graders.

From the outside we look at it and we think – this mob might have enough young quality now to actually go somewhere. From the inside – it is important the Eagles kids can look at themselves and others and go yep – we are headed somewhere.

For the first time on Sunday – I think we all got the feeling that that hope carried some weight. With the Devils looming on the horizon in 2028 – it has come not a minute too soon.