West Coast Eagles recruit Alison Drennan insists they are ready to soar in 2024 at club’s Great Southern tour

New West Coast Eagles women’s recruit Alison Drennan says her side is ready for a much-improved season built on heavy recruitment and culture buy-in from the playing group. Drennan, 33, who is now at her fourth AFLW club, arrived at Mineral Resources Park during the off-season in a trade that saw the Eagles part ways with pick No.27 in the 2023 draft. The Eagles will be desperate to improve after a disappointing tenure since their inception, having managed just eight wins across their first five seasons. Speaking in Albany during the club’s Great Southern regional development tour, the former Gold Coast best and fairest winner said the club’s busy trade period would help them in a push for a finals berth. “Recruiting hard this off-season has been really good,” Drennan said. “We got Annabelle (Johnson) from Geelong and Jess Hosking from the Tigers as well, so it’s just gonna really add some experience and some talent to our group. “We did well in the draft and also getting Daisy (Pearce) across as head coach, I think everybody’s ready to turn the corner and to change things around. “I think we’ve got the talent to do it and it’ll be good having some super leadership to help us in that area. “In the women’s competition, you can get really far in a really short time, so if we get wins on the board, we can make finals. “We want people to be afraid to play us.” The midfielder believes their tight-knit squad, which contains Great Southern talent Sophie McDonald and Belinda Smith, is heading in the right direction after a disappointing season when they finished 17th with two wins. “Off field, we have a really good connection and just an amazing culture,” she said. “I think it’ll be able to transfer on the field and from what I’ve seen, the foot skills are really good. “I think just working in the contest part of the game will be really important and if we can work on that, will be really hard to beat.” The Eagles visited the the Great Southern this week to host a junior talent identification session on Monday night at Retravision Stadium before running school clinics at Mt Manypeaks Primary School and Great Southern Grammar on Tuesday. They finished their tour by hosting a development session that specifically focused on theory and practical elements of constructing training programs for women’s football coaches in the region on Tuesday evening.