Selwood goes back for the future
The first thing Adam Simpson looked to improve after arriving at West Coast at the end of last year was the way the club moved the ball offensively.
But while most of the squad have been changing the way they attack, the plan for midfielder Scott Selwood is exactly the opposite.
“I think it’s always a bit of a balance depending on who we’re playing but I probably presume that I’ll go back to a bit more of a defensive role,” Selwood said today.
“We’ve lost a couple of older guys in Andrew Embley and Daniel Kerr and we’ll start bringing in some new guys.
“I think it’s probably better that they can go out there and just play footy and then I’ll probably go back to playing more of a defensive role.”
The youngest Selwood brother made his name as a run-with midfielder early in his career but was given freedom to roam in former coach John Worsfold’s last few seasons at the club.
The change bore fruit early, with the 23-year-old winning the Eagles club champion award in 2012, but as time wore on and the club’s on-field fortunes plummeted, the opposition’s best players began to relish the extra space they were given around the contests.
Selwood said he didn’t expect Simpson to order a tag every week, but he was ready to take on the Gary Abletts and Dane Swans of the competition when needed.
“You look at the premiership teams and they don’t generally have a strong tagger, with Fremantle being the exception,” he said.
“There’s different ways and different attitudes that coaches have on it.
“I’m just under the belief that each week is a different week and we’ll see who the most dangerous is and see if they’re worth tagging as a full tag or a half tag or whatever.”
West Coast are in Albany today and tomorrow for the club’s annual community camp.
Selwood, who hails from regional Victoria, says he can understand how special the visits are for local kids.
“We had the Richmond Tigers come down and I was a Tigers fan so I loved it at the time,” he said.
“It’s always exciting, I still remember the players coming out, Troy Simmonds asked me a question, you still remember all those little details.
“Hopefully if we can have some sort of influence and things like that on these kids it would be fantastic.”
