West Coast coach John Worsfold believes the 2010 season can be a platform for success in the future after the Eagles rounded off their year with another loss to Geelong on Saturday.
The Eagles finished the season with just four wins to 'win' the wooden spoon for the first time in their proud history and cap off a remarkably quick fall from grace following their 2006 premiership success.
But Worsfold remains adamant the club is heading in the right direction with many promising youngsters gaining plenty of match experience.
"I'm very focused on where we are going. I think we made the call last year that we lost a lot of our experience and that meant we were starting from our base this year," he said after the Eagles' 44-point loss to the Cats.
"This was always going to be our toughest year. We've got through this year and as much as it's not nice, we're getting better prepared for next year."
"To me it's obvious that this year was our starting point."
"It's a platform, whether it's a great platform you never know, but we're going to go into next year as a squad a lot better than we did go into this year because just through volume of games that the players have played."
"Looking where Ebert and Selwood have got to and Masten and all those guys. So that just means they're better prepared than other pre-seasons."
Worsfold looked to Melbourne and Richmond's improvement this season as proof it doesn't take too long to get back on track towards the top eight, the coach saying he still remains confident that the Eagles will be challenging for a finals berth in 2012.
"Starting from the bottom and we'll start working our way up and it moves fairly quickly as we've seen by sides like Melbourne and Richmond, who were at the bottom for two or three years," he said.
"It can move pretty quickly so we'll make sure we knuckle down, do the work and make it move fairly quickly."
Worsfold also said the Eagles will be a key player in this year's trade period and they won't be rushing into any list decisions until closer to then.
The former West Coast captain left Skilled Stadium happy with his side's first-half performance, where they led the Cats by eight points at one stage, and said it was a great learning curve for his young team.
"It was a test for the players today, knowing it was there last game and coming up against a red-hot team," Worsfold said.
"In the second half we got outclassed and Ablett obviously turned the game around a bit, but it was a good learning curve for the young guys to see how that can happen and how quickly it can happen, but I thought they hung in there."