West Coast labelled criticism of their stars’ health “irrelevant”, “ridiculous” and never “true info” lower than a 12 months in the past.
However now the membership has conceded some stars weren’t “on the high” of their sport in a backflip that has angered AFL commentator Kane Cornes.
Cornes went on the report basically “fats shaming” a number of West Coast gamers as early as final April when the Eagles’ season slipped away earlier than their dismal seventeenth end.
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He accused Simpson of letting skilled requirements slip, earlier than being labelled a “shock jock” in response from Eagles CEO Trevor Nisbett.
Now Cornes has labelled the membership’s response to his feedback “disgraceful” given each coach Adam Simpson and captain Luke Shuey have now spoken out about how match the gamers are this pre-season.
“You say: ‘We made some errors’ (after the preliminary health issues in 2022); it’s the way in which you phrase it, Cornes stated on SEN WA.
“(Simpson ought to have stated) We made some errors in our pre-season, I don’t assume the gamers have been as hungry as I might have preferred them to have been.
“Yep there’s been mitigating components round that – a part of that’s some accidents they’d, however that doesn’t excuse them for having a poor weight loss plan and letting themselves placed on weight and get off form.
“There’s many workouts you are able to do which are non-weight bearing that may hold your health up.
“In fact they will phrase it in a means reasonably than come out and say ‘Nah, Kane Cornes is a shock jock as a result of he’s known as us unfit’ – that was a disgraceful response from Adam Simpson and Trevor Nisbett when it was clear for everybody to see that Elliot Yeo was obese, Nic Naitanui was obese, Tim Kelly was off form.
“Everybody may see it besides them – or they may see it however they weren’t ready to place their hand up and say they made a mistake.”
And Cornes wasn’t the one knowledgeable to take goal on the Eagles, with ex-AFL recruiter Matt Rendell labelling some West Coast gamers “genuinely fats”.
“I don’t take something Kane Cornes says as any worth in anyway,” Nisbett informed 7NEWS again in August.
“A number of the stuff he says is simply ridiculous and it’s unhappy truly that he’s gone to these ranges as a result of it’s simply not honest.”
However in latest weeks each Simpson and Shuey conceded the health requirements had been the main target after final 12 months’s horror season.
“They’re in all probability as match as I’ve seen them in order that’s a giant tick for us,” Simpson stated.
“Look when there’s smoke, there’s hearth,” Shuey later revealed.
“Lots of people externally had been calling us ‘unfit’ final 12 months – and so they in all probability weren’t fully off the mark with that suggestion.
“However internally we had been at all times going to determine as soon as we reviewed the season what we wanted to get higher at – and you may’t do something except you’re match on this sport anymore.
“So our first step over the low season was ensuring we got here again in fine condition.”
Eagles footy boss Gavin Bell stated gamers are conscious they weren’t on high of their sport final season, and that the membership’s seventeenth place end was all of the motivation they wanted.
“I believe you’ve got a 12 months like final 12 months and also you realise that it is advisable be on the high of your sport to be not solely aggressive however to win video games of footy,” he stated on SEN.
“We weren’t in a position to try this final 12 months.
“I believe that’s giving some actual sturdy motivation to our leaders who’ve come again in good nick.”
Initially revealed as ‘Disgraceful’ Eagles slammed for backflip after livid response to ‘fat-shaming’ of some gamers
