![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/412a591039b23119586eb40cd85ae22d91a0e798.jpg\")
Camera IconTom McCarthy immediately established himself as one of West Coast\u2019s best performers last season. Credit: Jackson Flindell\/The West Australian<\/p>\nBreakout West Coast star Tom McCarthy is confident his first AFL pre-season will help him elevate his game to another new level in 2026.<\/p>\n
McCarthy also declared he was ready to make a full-time move into the midfield after impressing when shifted from the backline to an on-ball role in the closing stages of last season.<\/p>\n
After being taken with the first selection in the mid-season draft, McCarthy was one of few bright spots in a difficult one-win campaign for the Eagles.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old made a huge early impression with a record-breaking 31-disposal debut against Carlton and went on to establish himself as one of his side\u2019s best performers in their final 10 games.<\/p>\n
McCarthy is in the unique position of experiencing his first AFL pre-season ahead of his second year at the level, having been preparing for a VFL campaign with Richmond\u2019s reserves at the same stage of 2025.<\/p>\n
He said the extra work he had done on his fitness over the off-season would hold him in good stead for his second season at the top level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely got to me a little bit, the training loads, but I think I\u2019ve thrived in that,\u201d McCarthy said.<\/p>\n
Camera IconTom McCarthy immediately established himself as one of West Coast\u2019s best performers last season. Credit: Jackson Flindell\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a running player, I\u2019ve smashed a few running tests and I\u2019m feeling really good. I\u2019m pretty happy with how I\u2019m going so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about recovery in the AFL world, I\u2019ve learnt a lot about that. Nutrition habits and speaking to the staff about how I can get through these sessions, they\u2019ve helped me manage my loads.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel a lot fitter than I did this time last year, so that\u2019s a great positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a tough season for the Eagles in 2025 drew to a close, McCarthy was given the chance to test his mettle as a midfielder and thrived, showcasing some physicality alongside his athleticism and ability to use the ball effectively.<\/p>\n
McCarthy said he had spent much of the summer preparing his body for the rigours of playing through the middle of the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of repeat-effort (training), shorter bursts of speed, a lot of power. I\u2019ve still got some work to do in that area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m learning to hit bodies, getting my contest work right, working on my tackling. That\u2019s been a big theme of mine and I\u2019m progressing through that really nicely.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m learning lots through there, lots of new craft things from Luke Shuey and learning the position a lot more.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and Tim Kelly like to pair up a fair bit at training and he teaches me a lot about little body craft things.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCarthy was not yet an AFL footballer when the Eagles recorded their only win of a difficult 2025 season against St Kilda in round 10, with all 10 of the games he featured in at the back half of the year ending in losses.<\/p>\n
He said the hope of tasting victory for the first time was helping to motivate him through the grind of pre-season training.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thinking about what our first win\u2019s going to look like and I think it\u2019s going to come pretty early.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping that first win will be in the first few rounds and we can certainly challenge teams a lot more than we did last season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breakout West Coast star Tom McCarthy is confident his first AFL pre-season will help him elevate his game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85,7067],"class_list":["post-411890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-west-coast-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411890","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=411890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}