Shuey: How 2015 defeat helped West Coast to 2018 triumph

Luke Shuey has reflected on the differences between West Coast’s preparations for its 2015 and 2018 Grand Finals that led to them winning it all in the latter.

In Adam Simpson’s second season in charge, the West Australian club catapulted themselves into premiership contention and made the Grand Final only to fall short against Hawthorn by 46 points as the Hawks completed their three-peat.

It took the Eagles another three years to return to the Grand Final stage.

But this time around, the result was a far happier one for the playing group as the club claimed its fourth AFL premiership with a five-point win over Collingwood.

Speaking on this week's episode of This is Your Journey - thanks to Tobin Brothers, the 2018 Norm Smith Medallist noted that a change in their mindset helped them stay focused on the main prize.

“I think in 2015, being our first Grand Final for a lot of us, we probably allowed ourselves to be emotionally drained by the end of the week with everything that comes of it,” Shuey said.

“Watching the game back, we looked so lacklustre for a lot of the day, and so when we got to 2018, we spoke in the lecture theatre on the Monday after we won the prelim as a group and Josh Kennedy got up and said, ‘What we need to do is make sure we accept the week, but not necessarily embrace it’.

“So, it was more about accepting what's to come, and there's gonna be formalities we can't get out of. We owe it to our fans to say g’day at training and sign some hats and speak to the kids and make their day.

“But we wanted to make sure we didn't spend any energy on stuff that we didn't need to that week.

“So, we all palmed all the ticket request forms and systems off to our partners and made them deal with it. We made a commitment at the Grand Final parade to be respectful in the car, you say g'day to everyone, but let's not go overs and get caught up if opposition fans are sledging us; just let it go. Don't get caught up and just accept the week and there's things we had to do, and we were only there for one reason, that was to play in a Grand Final.”

The now 36-year-old also believes that, with the majority of the 2018 side having played in the 2015 decider, it removed the unknown around the occasion and showed they are capable of going toe-to-toe with the competition’s best.

“I think the other thing was when we watched that 2015 game back, there were moments in the game we actually weren't that far off,” he continued.

“We started OK, but they got on top pretty quickly. I know they're a really professional team and they probably just kept us at arm's length, and we probably felt like we were a bit closer, but, on the scoreboard, there were times we were within two or three goals for a lot of that day, and we came back from a fair deficit at one point.

“So, going into ’18 we sort of figured we're not that far off being the best team.

“We had three more years' experience as players, we'd developed as leaders, the stage wasn't gonna be as foreign to a lot of us, so, we sort of knew what we were going into, and we knew we were capable of winning.”

To listen to the full conversation with Sam Edmund, press play below.