Scott Cummings and Tim Gossage break the news of a West Coast Eagles board meeting that is happening today to discuss the future of Adam Simpson's Tenure.
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Adam Simpson Could Go Today - (09/07/2024)
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Download the Experian app. Results will vary, not all subscriptions are eligible, savings are not guaranteed, paid membership with connected payment account required. A bit of breaking news this morning as we try and straighten things up. It is my understanding that the West Coast Eagles board meeting is today. This is a planned meeting, non-extraordinary board meeting and comes as no surprise that Adam Simpson's coaching future will be the number one item on today's agenda. My information is, the board could decide as early as today and announce today that Adam Simpson's time as coach is up, effective immediately. Well, I'll be the first time that I've done that in season, so you were saying, just back over that, that he'll be gone today. The board is meeting today, a standard board meeting, but Adam Simpson's tenure is the number one item and it would come as no surprise that Adam Simpson today will be informed. Out of that board meeting, that his time is up, effective immediately. There's no point staying, if the board has made a decision that Adam Simpson's not the coach moving forward beyond this year, then the next seven weeks will serve as nothing positive for the West Coast Eagles football team. It's a brutal game, isn't it? We do keep in mind, this is a human being, and we've got that we're talking about, but unfortunately, in this job, there is scrutiny, law and results speak for themselves. At the moment, we saw signs earlier this year that there was improvement, there was hope, there was no doubt about that, but it certainly dropped off in the last few weeks. It was a rebuild, it was admitted to being a rebuild, and it was going to be a long journey back, and Adam Simpson has not wavered from that, and I'm not saying there was, and everyone keeps piling on about these text messages going around. Whether that is true or not, that's to me, it's the rumblings of unhappiness and messaging falling on deaf ears that you can't have at a football club, and if that's the case, then a change has to happen. Yeah, look, we've been, all last year and the year before, we've been supporters and saying that there is nothing good will come out of sacking Adam Simpson, and we were strong on that, and as I said, there were signs earlier this year, but right now, you probably think it is the case, just put the text messages in one box and then close it and put it away, because I've never been at a football club where everyone loves the coach, and their reports were, there was one senior player and two younger players, now those two younger players probably not playing, or not playing where they want to play, well bad luck, do what your job is, get yourself up for games, and do what you paid to do, stop bitching and moaning. Put that aside now, because that happens everywhere, I'm telling you right now, at every club, there are players that don't agree with the coach and the way he's coaching, it happens all the time, so forget all of that, put that aside. We've been talking about performances, their effort and input on weekends has certainly waned, it was dropped off the last couple of, hasn't it, and that first quarter, that first quarter, anyone says, oh, well after quarter time, they were tight, they only lost by two or three goals, but that first quarter after a stinker the week before, that's where you make your statement, that's where you say, boys, that's unacceptable, we need to respond and we need to answer, and they said that all week that they were going to, and then they come and have seven kicked against them in the first quarter. So, you can argue whether it's the players responsibility to get themselves up, but at some stage there's also the coaches responsibility to get them up, and if you can't do that anymore, then you have to find someone who can, what they do now, glossy is who do you believe will be the interim coach. They just have to go do a Matthew Nites and or a Jared Skofield. Right, so would either of those two, if they have, I'm not sure where Matthew Nites sits as far as future coaching opportunities or aspirations go, but Jared Skofield wants to be a senior coach, I'd imagine. Would you want that? Because he's an interim coaching role, can be an absolute killer, sometimes of all hopes and dreams for future coaches. I don't think you knock it back. I think if you get seven weeks to put yourself out there and if you're an assistant coach, they've got to take a large chunk of responsibility for the way this team has played and their roles. Absolutely, they don't. Not just Adam Simpson, he's the man at the front, he's paid the big bucks and he gets the adulation as a premiership coach. Yeah, but as you know, when things are going really well, you've got a great amount of great supporting coaches behind him, he's got great support staff and their ideas are brilliant. And when things are going bad, the coaches know good and we'll put in one of those assistants that obviously hasn't done much. And we're not in the four walls, it costs you a closer than I am, but we're not in the walls where you might hear a Jared Skofield say, "Samo, we need to do this, we need to do this, we need to do this." And Samo says, "No, we're not doing it." I don't know if that happens or not, but at the end of the day, the assistant coaches have a big role to play. We have a look at it, they're comments the other week about Sam Mitchell's influence in the '18 premiership. And obviously it was all Sam Mitchell if we look at it now, that's not right or true, but he obviously had a big impact. I think it's a tough one, but you know what, if you are going in as the interim coach from West Coast right now, to save yourself and to save the club and what they should have been doing earlier, in my opinion only, is have a look at every player. Have a look at them all, the ones that are performing well that are going to go that possibly could take into the future of this rebuild, play them. Play true, play and give him so, we're going to give you four weeks, not play you as a sub, see how you go and then drop you, or play your one game and then drop you. Play Hall, see what he's like, and if, you know, let them see what they've got, that's a rebuild. So just clarifying, it is not an extraordinary board meeting, it is a planned board meeting. Adam Simpson's coaching tenure is on the agenda, in fact it's number one ticket item on the agenda. And my understanding is the board will make a decision today on Adam Simpson's coaching future, and one would imagine his time is up, effective immediately, and that could all be played out within the 24 hours and maybe by sundown today. Your thoughts 13-12-55-0-4877-6736, again, these are just information that I've been gifted last night, late last night. And there's been a lot of these type of speculations gone over a long period of time about when, where, why and how. I think you'd have to be not understanding the football landscape, if you think Adam Simpson will be coaching next year, Adam Simpson wants to remain in the position, Adam Simpson will receive a hefty payout of his contract. But West Coast Eagles will move. And then I did speak to someone last night after receiving that information about, and I did take it beyond and said, "What about 2025 and beyond?" Dean Cox clearly. Chris Scott, you've got to pick up the phone and call Chris Scott. The name that keeps popping up from two contacts inside football is Jamie Graham. So Jamie Graham is a senior assistant down at Fremantle, was at West Coast, came close to getting some senior gigs. There's mixed reports about Jamie, whether they think he can elevate to the next level, but there is also some strong support inside the West Coast Eagles for Jamie Graham as a senior coach. So if Dean Cox doesn't take it and they can't maybe get a Chris Scott of the light, don't be surprised if Jamie Graham's name doesn't continue to make headlines. And that would be huge, because the eye intel that he can bring out of Fremantle at the moment, I don't know how they're travelling, would be huge. And he was at West Coast, he stepped away from the football club, which is often the smartest thing to do, and now he could possibly imagine how good that would be for Jamie Graham. The West Coast Eagles are not so great for Fremantle and West Coast would be certainly considering Jamie Graham's decision. And then for supporters who are out there going, I'm not sure about that one, forget about playing careers and all that sort of stuff, because a great player doesn't make you a great coach. But you know, there's been surprises in the coaching ranks when you see them get appointed, you go, oh yeah, I'm not sure about that. And turn out to be the great people persons, great motivators, great orators, and they get a good result and surround themselves with good people, put a good plan together, where you go. We'll see how this all plays out today. Gonna ask you another question then. The board meeting is on. How much responsibility do the board have to take? They'll take some, they've got to take some, but the chairman is going. Yeah, but that's a rostered thing, isn't it? But he's going in three years. Yeah, but Paul Fitzpatrick's going. Yeah. So that just got to find another chairman and there'll be the time is up. I mean, I'm not so sure, I mean, I don't think they made the wrong decision not sacking Adam Simpson last year. I mean, they have improved. They have improved. We both agree. And I think if you're an Eagles fan, you would admit they have improved, but the last couple of weeks, there's some hardcore warning signs. Warning signs for a disinterested playing group. And if the messaging is falling on deaf ears and Adam's message is not getting through, then for Adam and the players and the club and the fans, the decision has to be made. So there will be changes at board level as well. But you know, how far we dig on that at the moment. Let's talk about the team and seven weeks to go and what they do with Adam Simpson. He spoke on Channel seven last night. He was asked about whether he wanted to get any clarity on his future. This was Adam Simpson's response. I haven't really thought about that, but I'm just just trying to do my job as best I can and I'm trying to explain what we're trying to do and what we're trying to get better at. And there's going to be some weeks where we're poor and some weeks we, you know, we achieve our goals. And I thought the earlier part of the season, we had some really good results, you know, some four quarter performances that were really good. And there's a few games in the last month or so that have been pretty disappointing. So I can sort of understand the rhetoric around there, but it doesn't change my vision or my goal or what we're trying to do. As a club and we're just trying to get better at the moment and be more consistent on a weekly basis. I sort of went through this last year, didn't we? So, yeah, we'll work through it. You know, we'll keep conversations pretty open and we'll keep moving forward and, you know, we'll sure get a decision made. Correct. And that might be today. Now, interesting enough, a lot of people are coming through with ideas and thoughts of coaches and what could happen next and the like. Scotty from Scabs does make it funny. I wouldn't say it's a funny point. The board were together last night or late yesterday afternoon. They were at the footy club, all the board driving in and everyone into went into meltdown mode as the media do in this town when the board meets. They were purely there for the announcement of the AFLW captains at the West Coast. Did they announce someone who's injured? No, they announced the same captain, Emma Swanson. Terrific. Tom O's, he's, you know, half taking the piss here, but let's go full insular. Yeah, Scotty had Coach Graham and Hanson and Sisson's got the band back together, haha. Well, the thing is with that is that your point before was a really strong one. Scotty, yep, massive part of the football club left and it's been a really strong organisation for a long time. Graham, as you've already mentioned, a free mental Hanson, the Bulldogs, he's been a Carlton, he's probably one other. They've been outside. They've been outside. So whether they have Eagles history, I think that's a good thing. But they've also gone and left and found other IP and developed themselves as well. So coming back, it might not be as insular as you think. A lot of people keep telling us too and messaging, you know, it's all to do with Harley Reid. They've got to make a change or they'll lose Harley Reid. Harley Reid's sucking it up because he's not happy with the coach. And Harley Reid needs to roll up because Harley Reid's got three years at West Coast. Harley Reid will probably sign for another year, a new coach may give him some energy. But I think Adam Simpson's been pretty damn supportive of Harley Reid since coming to the football club. And I think there's any angst there whatsoever. He's been begging for people to give him a spell and give him some space. No, that being supportive there. And if that was the case, he's fully looks like it a little bit in the last couple of weeks. But keep in mind, I don't think I've seen anyone have to deal with what Harley Reid's had to deal with in his first 15 games of football. It's been extraordinary. And yeah, of course he's got some growing up to do. He's 18, no, he's 19. Absolutely he does. But that's not the problem. That's not the problem at all.