New recruit to focus on Eagles list

Former Melbourne and Sydney footballer Adrian Battiston is set to join West Coast as the club looks to beef up the list management side of its football operations.

Battiston, who played 96 games for Melbourne from 1982-1987 before playing nine games for Sydney in two seasons, will assume responsibility for a big portion of the Eagles' list management strategy.

West Coast chief executive Trevor Nisbett confirmed that Battiston, currently working as a lawyer with an emphasis on sport in Adelaide, was likely to join the club and that veteran recruiter Mick Moylan, who had been working out of Melbourne in recent years, would return to WA.

Nisbett hoped that Moylan would remain with West Coast in some capacity but said there was no defined role for him at the moment.

Football operations manager Craig Vozzo is overseeing the changes.

Rohan O'Brien is expected to remain the club's head of recruiting but Moylan's fellow veteran scout Trevor Woodhouse is also expected to scale back his role at the club.

There is speculation that Brad Smith could be given increased responsibility in the recruiting department.

The moves are, in part, to rationalise and prune the club's football department costs, with the AFL's "soft tax" on football department spending looming.

But they are also driven by succession planning and circumstances.

Neale Daniher stood down from his role as the club's football operations manager 12 months ago because of his battle with motor neurone disease and has now returned to Victoria.

"We don't have an official list manager at the moment," Nisbett said. "Craig will still head up the football department and have a strong input into the list management side of it.

"He has been looking at how we structure it up with Neale's departure for a few months now. Adrian has been part of that mix."

Stalwarts Moylan and Woodhouse have long-standing associations with the club spanning more than 20 years and Nisbett expects both to stay involved.