FALCONS CONFIDENT NEW PRE-SEASON APPROACH WILL HAVE LONG-TERM BENEFITS

WEST Perth chief executive David Crute is confident that a new later start to pre-season will pay dividends for the Falcons later in 2015 with the 2013 premiers backing in their young talent topped up only by a handful of recruits who are training the house down.

Coming off a 2014 season where West Perth narrowly missed playing in the finals to defend their premiership but had a jam packed schedule with three Foxtel Cup matches taking the place of their byes, the Falcons had a thorough review of their football department before the 2015 pre-season.

There have been off-field changes with the restructuring of the football department with Ward Harris taking over as football operations manager while Casey Haw is on board as football operations coordinator, Jessica Eddy as football operations administrator and senior coach Bill Monaghan will have an increased role in the club's district and schools.

The decision was that West Perth's senior squad wouldn’t begin pre-season training until late November with the thought being that the increased break for the players, support staff and volunteers would be beneficial in the long run.

The thoughts were that the work done in the month leading up to Christmas could still match what would have been done with an extra few weeks training anyway, but the positives are the likelihood that there will be less burnout come July, August and September from everyone involved given the extra break from the club, and the grind hasn’t been as long constantly.

"We made a calculated decision to start our pre-season three or four weeks later than everybody else," Crute said on 91.3 SportFM.

"We are a semi-professional organisation, we are not the AFL and we think that times have changed and we think that for player welfare, but staff and volunteer burnout in particular we decided to start our pre-season on the third Monday in November as opposed to a month earlier.

"It's a risk but we think it will pay off in terms of having our players and support staff being fresh at the business end of the season.

"Having said that, our senior strength and conditioning coach Craig Soley panicked a little bit when we said we would start pre-season late so the boys were doing extra work within that smaller timeframe, and as a result they are out on the track going 100 miles an hour. It's just amazing seeing the amount of work they do."

As for the West Perth playing group heading into 2015, aside from retired greats Dan Hunt and Anthony Tsalikis, and the departure of reserves premiership players Shaun Marusic, Jordan Mills, James Embley and captain Cameron Branch, the Falcons team has largely stuck together for 2015.

That means that the majority of the 2013 premiership players remain at the club still and then there are emerging players like Kris Shannon, Luke Meadows, Max Alexander, Matt Johnson, Mitch van Berlo and James Batterham who will continue to take the next step.

There has been some targeted recruiting that West Perth has undertaken with Callum Papertalk and Chris Yarran a pair of youngsters looking to revive their careers in the WAFL while Michael Lourey arrives from VFL club Frankston ready to be a focal point in attack.

"Our forward line did struggle a bit last year so we made a concerted effort to go and find a key forward, and we are really thrilled to pick up Michael Lourey from Frankston in Victoria," he said.

"He was a state player for the VFL over the last couple of years, kicked 140 years at centre half-forward the last couple of years and he's a good hard leader. He's not a huge bloke, but he's tall enough, fast leading, has strong hands and is a really good kick.

"We had been talking with him for the last 12 or 18 months and he has just recently got married, he has a brother over here and he is 24 and looking to make his life over in WA. We think he will be a 100-game player for us which is really exciting.

"We're not into getting players over here for one or two years and then seeing them take the money and run. We felt that was one hole that we needed to fill and that enables us to play Nick Rodda and Marcus Adams as key forwards as well so we think they will be a pretty powerful three-pronged attack.

"Callum Papertalk is a former West Coast rookie, played at Perth and he's 22 and been playing amateurs the last couple of years. He called us late last year wanting another crack in the WAFL. He is a big, tall kid and we think he can play a role for us.

"Chris Yarran is another fantastic Indigenous player and was a State 16s and 18s player, and played league at Perth as a young fella.

"He sort of lost his way a little bit and because disillusioned, and has been playing amateurs the last couple of years and in the state amateurs side. He actually trained with us for most of last year to get fit and ready for pre-season, and he is a direct result of Andrew Krakouer coming to the club."