{"id":43030,"date":"2025-08-04T14:41:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/43030\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:41:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:41:24","slug":"afl-legend-leigh-matthews-wants-afl-to-give-west-coast-eagles-a-priority-pick-in-the-national-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/43030\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL Legend Leigh Matthews wants AFL to give West Coast Eagles a priority pick in the national draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hall of Fame Legend Leigh Matthew has called on the AFL to give West Coast a priority pick in the draft, saying the league will suffer if the team remains non-competitive.<\/p>\n

The Eagles\u2019 83-point loss to Melbourne on Saturday guaranteed they will finish on the bottom of the ladder this year and the club is preparing a request for draft assistance from the AFL after winning just 11 matches across the last four seasons.<\/p>\n

Matthews said it was vital that the competition didn\u2019t have one team that simply couldn\u2019t compete.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re ever going to give a priority pick again, they have been bad enough for long enough,\u201d Matthew said on Fox Footy\u2019s On The Couch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know they won the premiership in 2018 and that\u2019s in the back of your mind. But if you are that bad, the first choice in the draft this year might go the Eagles and he\u2019ll think \u2018terrific, I\u2019ve got to be down the bottom of the ladder.\u2019 You\u2019ve got to try to make sure equalisation works so the draft works.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re rich and they\u2019re powerful but you can\u2019t buy a premiership in modern footy, which is a good thing. But they are going to have to draft really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look back at the Suns. Remember the Suns were down the bottom about six years ago and they got a priority pick. They got Rowell and they got Anderson. Great ability, great character and they stayed. The Suns have sort of built their team off the back of their example.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what the Eagles\u2019 challenge is to be. You\u2019ve got to do free agency to elevate yourself but you\u2019ve got to draft really good character that stays the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WestCamera IconWest Coast star Harley Reid. Credit: Daniel Carson\/AFL Photos\/AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The AFL Commission will be responsible for making the decision around West Coast\u2019s application but the club\u2019s recent success will also be taken into account. The Eagles won the premiership in 2018 and played in the 2015 grand final.<\/p>\n

Gold Coast had missed the finals for their first nine seasons, finished in the bottom four seven times, were still on the bottom of the ladder and had struggled to retain players.<\/p>\n

When asked if West Coast\u2019s premiership should count against West Coast\u2019s application, Matthews agreed it would be a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is an interesting point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"LeighCamera IconLeigh Matthews is one of the greatest players of all time. Credit: Michael Willson\/AFL Media<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe if you\u2019ve won a premiership in the last decade, you become ineligible. But they\u2019ve won 11 games in the last five seasons. If you\u2019re really bad, you can stay bad, but the competition is based on its equalisation pillar.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hall of Fame Legend Leigh Matthew has called on the AFL to give West Coast a priority pick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43031,"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-43030","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\/43030","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=43030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}