STABILITY THE KEY TO WEST PERTH COACHING STRUCTURE

STABILITY of the coaching staff has played a big part in West Perth's success in recent seasons and that's again the focus in 2016 with league coach Bill Monaghan in his eighth season in charge and colts mentor Craig Thomas his sixth.

West Perth has either taken part in finals or only narrowly missed out in all seven seasons that Monaghan has been in charge with a premiership and grand final appearance along the way the highlights.

Now for 2016 stability throughout the entire coaching staff structure is the key.

Monaghan will continue to extend his time as the longest ever league coach in the club's history with his assistants again being Craig Smoker, Paul Sanzone and Joe Commande.

Michael Pratt is again coach of the reserves team with John Burton, Matt Dobson and Matt Scully his assistant coaches.

And last year's WAFL Colts Coach of the Year Thomas is in his sixth season in charge at the Falcons with Paul Sanzone, Ash McKeown and Bruce Bennett assisting him.

Monaghan is happy with the overall structure that West Perth has in place in the coaching department but he has made one new appointment with the arrival of Gavin Brown to help with the analysis on the opposition teams in particular.

"We are pretty much the same as we were last year. The only main addition is the arrival of Gavin Brown who has spent some time at East Perth and East Fremantle," Monaghan said.

"He has worked with Steve Malaxos the last three or four years and he has come on board with a fancy title as our innovations and strategy coach.

"I am very lucky here with the commitment of my assistants and staff and we have been together for six or seven years, but we are looking for Gavin to bring some fresh ideas and maybe look at things a little differently to what we've done on the inside.

"He will come on board and give us opinions on what they did at East Fremantle and East Perth, and look at ways that we could use a player differently or look at ways that clubs might try to exploit us or how East Fremantle might have played against certain opposition."

While recovering from his knee reconstruction, Matt Guadagnin will also be helping with the coaching of the midfield group during 2016 while his premiership captain Jason Salecic will take on more of a role this year as well in a mentor role for some of the emerging players at the Falcons.

"Matt Guadagnin will do a little bit more coaching this year even though he was on the coaching staff last year after he was injured. And Jason Salecic has come back in a more official sort of role in a mentoring and leadership capacity with a couple of our young guys," Monaghan said.

"Both the players and coaches are really excited to have Jase back on board. He has got great experience and he was a fantastic leader, and we are really looking forward to him putting him some of the standards he had on the football club onto some of the young guys. Hopefully that's a couple of areas that we can improve in."

Another change for 2016 at West Perth is Simon Quayle taking on the newly created role of Coaching and Development Coordinator.

That will see him help to upskill and act as a resource for the club's senior development coaches all the way down to the 14s development squad coaches.

Quayle's role sees him frequently touch base with the WAFL's Coaching and Development Coordinator Tony Micale with a focus on improving the skill sets of coaches for the benefit of themselves and the club, and helping them to achieve their individual career coaching goals.