Motormouth Mitch: Why West Coast’s call on veteran Jamie Cripps will say a lot about Eagles’ rebuild

West Coast face some big list decisions in the coming months, but none may be bigger than the call they make on veteran Jamie Cripps. Footy writer Mitchell Woodcock takes a no-holds-barred look at the week in footy... Cripps Call West Coast’s rebuild is going full steam ahead, but it has left the future of one of their favourite son’s in limbo. Malakai Champion became the club’s eighth debutant already this season and there are only three players – Coen Livinstone, Lucca Grego and Jacob Newton – on the list who are yet to play an AFL game. First-year coach Andrew McQualter has made it clear he is not handing out games. They are undoubtedly exploring the depth and potential of their list while also maintaining selection integrity. But the fact of the matter is the Eagles are now looking at who will be part of their next premiership, and it leaves the club in a tough situation when it comes to Jamie Cripps. Cripps is arguably still in their best side but at 33 and without a contract for next season, the decision around what to do with the premiership forward is going to be a true test of this relatively new regime. The Northampton product has already said that he wants to continue on but whether it is best for the team is a question that is up for debate. Should he earn a new contract he would become only the fifth player to ever line up for West Coast aged 34 years or older, joining Shannon Hurn, Josh Kennedy, Sam Mitchell and Drew Petrie. Cripps’ issue is that the Eagles aren’t short of depth and talent at the small forward position. The Eagles recruited Matt Owies from Carlton on a three-year deal and while he has only kicked six goals in 10 games this season, at 28 he is still young enough to be part of the rebuilding side. And then there is Noah Long, who returned to form in the WAFL in the win over Subiaco with three goals and before the injury which ruined his 2024 season there were signs that the goalsneak had a big career ahead. Add in the fact they still have Liam Ryan, Champion and now Tim Kelly — who the Eagles have signed for two more years — the Eagles are going to find it tough to squeeze them all in. Telling a great like a Cripps that his time in the game is done is a massive call to make, but powerhouse clubs have done this in the past when they need to prioritise youth to rejuvenate their list. Don’t forget Hawthorn moved on Sam Mitchell, Jordan Lewis and Luke Hodge as they rebuilt from an incredible era and after a few years of pain they are not back towards the top of the table. There are similar situations around wingman Jayden Hunt who has found himself back in the WAFL after a run of poor form. Tom Cole is younger than fellow out-of-contract veterans Hunt and Cripps at only 28 and was in great form before his untimely hamstring injury. And there aren’t any lockdown small defenders at West Coast demanding to play ahead of him. However, Cripps and Hunt have plenty of competition for their spots already. List decisions at the draft and trade table are seen as vital to the Eagles’ next era, but just as important is who they keep and who they let go. The call on Cripps’ will say a lot about where West Coast are heading. Saving Serong Fremantle must get better at helping Caleb Serong deal with taggers. Teams have worked out that if you can shut down Serong at the contest you take away the Dockers’ biggest midfield weapon. In the 11-point defeat to Sydney, Serong was restricted to only 11 disposals and one clearance by sublime stopper James Jordon. Fremantle lost the clearance battle 41-32 and a lot of that has to be because they couldn’t get Serong into the game. The most disappointing aspect of the match-up for Fremantle was the lack of physicality shown by his teammates to Jordon to try to disrupt him from being able to keep Serong quiet. It’s the next step in their maturity as a team that will turn them into a premiership contender. When the Dockers noticed Serong was struggling with the attention shown by Jordon and that it was affecting them at the clearances, they needed to respond. Fellow midfielders like Nathan O’Driscoll, Matt Johnson and Neil Erasmus needed to be putting on blocks, trying to shove Jordon around or just disrupting their system. With all due respect to the rest of the Dockers’ midfield, there is no one who can do as much damage as Serong and they needed him more than most at the smaller venue that is the SCG. They are small things, but they are those are the ones that turn good teams into great ones. Serong needs to demand more help from his teammates, and they must respond immediately. The Brownlow fancies unusually quiet outing wasn’t the only reason for the loss to the Swans, but it was arguably the biggest one. MRO Priorities The AFL needs to step in and start making statements through suspensions when it comes to deliberate acts by players that have the impact to seriously hurt their opponents. For too long bans and the lengths of them have been based around the injury that is sustained rather than the potential to cause one. There was no better evidence of this than last week when Tom Lynch received a five-week suspension for his wild hit Adelaide defender Jordon Butts last weekend. How that got only five weeks still baffles me a week later. To say that Lynch was lucky not to have connected heavier on Butts is an understatement but how that incident only constitutes five weeks and a run-down tackle by North Melbourne Paul Curtis earlier this season that left Port Adelaide’s Josh Sinn concussed only gets three weeks is ludicrous. The tackle from Curtis was a football at, and I still argue that this should not have been worthy of a stint on the sidelines given the Kangaroos forward was unlucky Sinn went forward and his head hit the deck. It was as much Sinn’s momentum as the tackle which caused the concussion. What Lynch did was not a football action in anyway and it’s only because he didn’t connect with his wild attempt at a punch that he did not receive a few more weeks. I argue that Lynch should have been suspended for the rest of the season regardless of the limited contact and told if he did anything like that on a football field again he would be deregistered. In a similar manner, Port Adelaide’s Hugh Jackson should cop at least a few weeks for his apparent deliberate knee to a vulnerable Dayne Zorko in their game on Saturday night. The Brisbane veteran was unable to defend himself or see Jackson’s knee coming on and in no way was it a football action. Somehow Jackson got away with a fine, which is ridiculous. The AFL must be harder on these deliberate actions that have the potential to cause serious injury. It is not something we want to see at Auskick on a Saturday morning and this should mean that he gets a lengthy suspension despite Zorko being able to play out the game. The AFL need to get their priorities right when it comes to suspensions. Preventing concussions is important, but the actions of Lynch and Jackson are worse and should be penalised accordingly.