John Worsfold’s AFL career has spanned many years and he’s been involved in a few clubs in different roles, but taking on the senior coaching role at Essendon has added ‘another layer of complexity’ to coaching a club. 

Worsfold is set to come back to Perth next week when his Bombers face Fremantle in Round 11 and he spoke about Fremantle’s demise after a successful 2015 season and drew from his time coaching West Coast when they went through a similar sequence before rebuilding. 
 
‘I think it can turn around fairly quickly, but it does take a lot of planning. My view with West Coast back in 2009 and ’10 was that it would be in real premiership contention by the time that (Nic) Naitanui and (Luke) Shuey and that crew of players were starting to hit their peak years,’ Worsfold said. 

The West Coast Eagles are celebrating 30 years in the competition and 10 years since their last premiership, when Worsfold was coach, and he confirmed he has been sending this former players texts each week to get them excited about the anniversary. 
‘I’m throwing some baits out there. I send them a very basic summary of what happened in the game 10 years ago, each Round. And then they run wild with getting stuck into each other.’

Worsfold also spoke about his short stint with the Adelaide Crows in trying circumstances and the future of Jobe Watson.

Listen to John Worsfold speaking with Karl Langdon, Peter Bell and Kim Hagdorn on 6PR’s Saturday Morning At The Footy…