Retired 2018 Brownlow Medallist Tom Mitchell has lashed West Coast's standards after an image surfaced showing first-to-fourth-year players on their haunches during their first session of the year.
Mitchell labelled the photo from the Western Australian "embarrassing" in a video uploaded to his Ball Magnets Instagram account.
"This image is utterly embarrassing for the West Coast Eagles on day one of pre-season," Mitchell said.
"Look at the body language - from all reports, they've just done their first running test, 11 200-metre sprints, and I've done that test before and don't get me wrong, AFL pre-seasons are one of the hardest things you'll ever do, but look at the body language.
"Look at the far left, there's a player on his haunches; just to the right, a player on their back. Below us here, four players on their hands and knees and another player below on his back. That is serious mental weakness.
"There is no leadership there. Thank God they got Jack Viney to stamp out some of this crap. I could not be more passionate about this. They are basically showing all the opposition out there as soon as it gets hard, we're going to roll on the ground and act like we're dying.
"This is West Coast in this example, but you see this often with a lot of teams around the league, but the best teams I played on had rules on this, not showing weakness.
"You're allowed to forget at times and go to your hands and knees, but get straight up; this is embarrassing from West Coast on day one of pre-season."
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West Coast has struggled to break out of the lower rungs of the table, finishing in the bottom four in each of the last five years but showed signs of improvement, particularly at home, in 2026.
"I hope a WCE player or coach watches this video and does something about it because they've been down for too long and they're a huge and impactful club for the league at their best," Mitchell added in a comment.
