West Coast Eagles Co-Captain, Oscar Allen, joined Scotty & Goss to extract positives from the Eagles' expectations moving forward through 2024 and beyond.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SEN WA Breakfast
"There are better times ahead, I promise you" - Oscar Allen (02/07/2024)
This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use but can't find the timer energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions are eligible savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. Ryan Reynolds here for I guess my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. No. Honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com/save, whenever you're ready. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes of CD-Tails. Hang on. Hey, honest. It's the top of the world, Tuesday. No, this is the right song. Wait, before you go, go. Wait, I'm going anywhere. What have you heard? Oh, for Simo, isn't it? Hey, there we go, there we go, there we go. Come on, new blokes. Come for the world, Tuesday. Oscar Allen's been kind enough to join us. We love it when the skipper comes on our show. Yeah. I don't know where the skipper is. He's been on that many times. Oh, my turn enough. Oscar, good morning. Good morning, guys. How are we? Yeah, really well, really well. How are you going? How are you going? Yeah, good. Good to be back playing footy. I'll tell you what, it's harder than I remember it being. But I'm loving being back and really enjoying being around the guys and obviously disappointing on the weekend. But happy to be back out there playing in the part of it. Yeah, hey, that wasn't a great performance, but today is Tuesday. So yesterday, I'm sure you would have dealt with a lot of that and you move on. You face Melbourne. You've got to get there on to the MCG. You don't get to play a lot of games there and you get a chance to bounce back. So you must be upbeat about what the rest of the weekend Sunday brings. Yeah, absolutely. And to be honest, I'm a bit of a footy enough here. I reckon most guys are playing now at FLR and we don't get many opportunities to play at the G. So the original home of footy, grand finals, play there every year. And if you're playing footy, you want to be there on the last day in September. So a great chance for our young group to have an opportunity to have a run out there. And against the side who performed well against last time we played them. So it's going to be a good challenge for us. Yeah, bang on the money. I mean, I've just said him is a brilliant study. No worries whatsoever, but there's nothing like being at the MCG and I think all players. Nothing a hundred million dollar makeover won't help, but it's actually a venue itself is good. Yeah, no, but players playing at the MCG, all about playing at the MCG. Hey, ask him, tell us, you know, we often hear the reports that, you know, after a long extended time off the game with your injury and that sort of jazz, you get back for your first game and you're feeling really, really good. Second game takes a bit of a toll though. And it was harder your second run harder than getting up for that than your first. Yeah, definitely. I think you go into a rehab setting and you're doing everything you can to get ready for that first game. You just can't replicate the knocks and the hits that you take in the game. And then you wake up the Monday morning of last week and you go, "Oh my God, my back's sore." My leg's like everything was sore. But work my way through it throughout the week. And the best thing about it for me was it was a good type of sore. And if you know what I mean by that, in terms of everything we saw except my knee, which I was like, "Oh, perfect, that's awesome." You know, the best possible result you could have coming back from a somewhat long-term injury. So that was the bleeding aspect of it all over the last week, for sure. Yeah, it's that off-played footy against all. And that's absolutely right. Yeah, absolutely. But I did a gig last week with Tommy Barris and Elijah Hewitt. No, no, Elijah's only probably a week away now. He was two weeks away last week, so he's a week away. Excited to get him back in. Obviously he'll probably have to get a game or two under his belt in the waffle, but to be excited to have him back running around through the middle and maybe cross-heart forward. Yeah, absolutely. What do you bring to us, Elijah? Real dynamic, modern-day football, right? Like I think all the best players in the game are dynamic from stoppage and help get the ball into territory. And that's something he does really well. He's a young man, he's 19 years old, so I think it's going to be really exciting. Eventually, when he gets his game, fitness up and plays at a senior level to be out there with the likes of Roods and Harley TK Joey, hopefully that's what our midfield will look like for a significant while going forward. Yep, throw in Liam Baker and you've just got it all there. He'll catch up with him on the week. Okay, oh, you won't. Oh, that's right. That's what makes us here. Hey, you've kicked two goals nine personally this year. Now, I'm not going to be, I'm not being a downer Oscar. Top of the world? Top of the world Tuesday. You're least getting some looks. Good, those two. You're getting some looks Oscar. Two goals nine. Yeah, now it is a positive and when you're playing forward, all you want to do is to me anyway, just make contests and I'll get looks that go a lot for back of that. That's how I've always gone about my footy. And last year, I kicked him really well. And this year, so far, I've missed a few that I'd like to have back. So that's probably the other thing is being back out there playing with the fatigue. It's difficult to fatigue when it's the 30th minute of the third quarter. And you've been out there for 100 minutes. And all of a sudden, balls in your hands kick it straight. So that's something that I'll keep working on the training track. But yeah, clearly, I'm not starting to be out of it. I've tried myself to be good and find the goals and taking opportunities. So yeah, yeah, but like you said, it's nice to be getting a look at goal in the first place. 53-23 last year. So yeah, it's not far away. Hey, mate, a lot of the response from your Eagles fans either on social media. And look, I've backed off on social media. I don't know if you know, but I'm in exile from Twitter. Yeah, and he's a better man for it too. So how do you go when the fans go? We don't want to hear excuses. We don't want to hear, we don't know what's wrong. We don't want to hear, oh, we're working hard at it. What they want to hear is just give us something positive. Be upbeat about what we're doing. You're the skipper. Do you understand their frustration at the same time, the fans? And what can you do about it? What can you as a skipper do about the positive nature of what you're doing at West Coast this year? Yeah, absolutely. We understand it. I mean, we had 50,000 loyal supporters roll up to watch us play on Sunday afternoon. And we really let them down. So to be honest, a lot of the energy that we've brought at home has been due to our fans. And that's why we think we've got some of the best fans in the competition. So we're in debt to them. But as you say, we're a young group and we're developing. We're not taking excuses of promissure in our reviews over the last 24 hours. That hasn't been a single excuse to start up. And we've been just asking questions because the difference between our best and our worst the moment is just too far apart. And until we can rectify that, we won't be a consistent side. But as I said, that was probably our first time on the weekend having a somewhat full-strength liner with all the midfielders backing together and me being able to play out full with Jakey and JD. So there's definitely a lot of growth left in the group and we're just trying every week to get better. And this is in a six or eight week thing. This is a 24/36 month thing where we're looking to get better for the long term. So when the firing goes into this season, that's not the end of it. We're just starting our development as a group. And better times ahead, promise you. Great to hear, mate. And that is top of the world Tuesday sort of stuff that we love hearing. You would have been watching Jakey Watermelons go about his work this year. And he's been absolutely sensational. I've loved watching what he's done, mate. While you're watching him and you're imminent return, when you come back in the side last week or the week before and then this week, do you have to go right? I'm going to change my role a little bit just because I don't want to take anything away from the season that he's having and how important he's been. Or do you go, we know each other well enough that we will work together well enough? Yeah, it's probably a bit from A and B to be honest. Like my mindset coming back into the team has just been, "How can I support and help Jake?" And also Jack and the rest of the forward line as well. And playing in the forward line, it's not about one person. So last year when I was having a good year, it wasn't about me. And this year, it's not completely about Jakey. But in saying that, I'm going to do everything I can to try and help him get as many looks as goal as he can, because he's in great form. Kicking the ball well, he's got the best hands that I've seen so far in his career. And just as a mate, just been so proud about watching him go about it. When I went down, I was obviously really disappointed. And watching Jake play and really getting the opportunity to shine has been a real silver lining to me over the last 16 weeks, if not playing footy. Eight weeks ago, you did a job on Melbourne. You've just got to take that positive out mindset, don't you? This is what you can do against Melbourne. Albeit it's in Melbourne, MCG. They're not travelling all that flash, but they showed some signs that they might have tipped over. No, Patraka, of course. You must go with what you've got available, whether McGovern plays, and we know Flynn's not going to play, but whether he plays not, whatever, a German McGovern. You must go there with some positive outlook on going back to back this year against Melbourne. Absolutely. I reckon you've got to go on to every game, knowing that you've got the cattle to be able to, not only compete, but beat any team you play. And then, I think, particularly as you said, we've played well against them earlier this year. But the game is won in the contest around the contested side of the game. And that's the area we didn't show up in on the weekend. So, you don't go into a game without recognising and acknowledging that. So, that's going to be our main focus. And if we get that right, absolutely, we'll be in a position to compete and win the game on the lead. Yeah, we just heard from Jake Waterman, he said, Oscar, can you tell Oscar to keep out of my way? Because the last time I played, I kicked five goals, 17 disposal, 14 kicks, 13 marks, two tackles, and I dominated. Yeah, push up, push up, I think he's worth it. It makes base for me, please. Hey, Oscar, we hope you enjoyed Top of the World Tuesday, mate. Yeah, I will. Thanks, guys. You put me on a positive note, going for the day. See? Good on you, mate. Thank you. Let's keep up, joining us. Thanks, Oscar. Good on you, mate. Appreciate it. No worries. Thank God. Thank you, Oscar Allen, West Coast Eagles, co-captain. It's rubbing off, mate. Absolutely. Yeah, we'll be getting into the club now, and... Yeah, walk past Simone, we'll go, "Hey, it's Top of the World Tuesday!" I'm like, I can't get stuck.