![\"Round](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/7a2cda9a96ed73cf54a6f74e1c81ec40bcdd7d6c.jpg\")
Camera IconRound 14. West Coast Eagles v Carlton at Optus Stadium, Perth. Oscar Allen limps off the ground. Credit: Ian Munro\/The West Australian<\/p>\nWest Coast legend Ben Cousins has weighed in on the departure of Eagles co-captain, calling it \u201cfantastic\u201d for both sides.<\/p>\n
The 105-game player officially leaves the Eagles nest after West Coast unsurprisingly opted against matching the Lions\u2019 healthy six-year deal they had tabled.<\/p>\n
Now the 26-year-old farewells last year\u2019s wooden spooners and joins the reigning back-to-back premiers, a league first.<\/p>\n
Club champion Cousins has encouraged West Coast fans to look at the silver lining.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no huge surprise that he is leaving, I think it\u2019s fantastic for him and also the footy club to get compensation pick two,\u201d he told Pete & Kymba for Breakfast with Ben Cousins on Mix94.5.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exactly what they need, they end up with a huge draft haul going into this year\u2019s draft with pick one, two and 13 \u2014 it\u2019s a strong hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the departures of Allen, rising stud Campbell Chesser and fan favourite Liam Ryan, the lowly one-win Eagles will turn to the draft chocked full of talent to rejuvenate their list.<\/p>\n
With pick two in the draft as compensation for the West Perth product giving their draft haul a major boon.<\/p>\n
While Allen fills a hole up-forward for Brisbane that was left when Joe Daniher retired at the end of 2024, bringing over his goal kicking prowess with 151 majors, including a career-best 53 in 2023.<\/p>\n
The Eagles premiership player warned, however, that the grass isn\u2019t always greener on the other side.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany, many times players have left struggling clubs to seek success or try to go to where they think they\u2019re going to have success, and it, you know, invariably doesn\u2019t work,\u201d Cousins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty hard to predict.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the initial news of Allen exploring options of leaving the club caused an uproar amongst Eagles fans, furious at their captain turning his back on the club.<\/p>\n
Camera IconRound 14. West Coast Eagles v Carlton at Optus Stadium, Perth. Oscar Allen limps off the ground. Credit: Ian Munro\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
However, just a few months and more than a fifth of AFL clubs have seen their captains either ask or been encouraged to leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t remember ever hearing as many captains in the competition being linked or rumoured to either being asked to look for opportunities elsewhere or asking if they can potentially move clubs over the summer,\u201d 2005 Brownlow medallist Cousins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOscar being one of them, Zach Merritt is the big one that\u2019s got plenty of airplay… Jy Simpkin from North and Jack Steele from St Kilda, so it\u2019s quite amazing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just an indication that the game is very much a business too, probably first and foremost, clubs and players have to protect their own interests at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Coast legend Ben Cousins has weighed in on the departure of Eagles co-captain, calling it \u201cfantastic\u201d for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85,7067],"class_list":{"0":"post-199690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-west-coast-eagles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}