West Coast know as well as anyone how quickly an AFL club can slip from premiers to strugglers and have warned raging flag favourites Geelong against getting too cocky.
The undermanned Eagles venture to Skilled Stadium to take on the Cats tomorrow, having been dealt a club record 135-point home defeat the last time the sides met, slightly more than two months ago.
And despite tomorrow's clash being a dead rubber, Geelong coach Mark Thompson has promised no mercy.
"West Coast are going to come here and I know they haven't got much of a team, but we want to give them the hardest day they are ever going to have in their life," Thompson said earlier this week.
But Eagles assistant coach Peter Sumich, whose club has plummeted since winning the flag in 2006, said that if that comment indicated the Cats did not rate the current West Coast side, they should be wary.
"It depends on the way Bomber's going about it, whether it was at us or was at his players, trying to get them fired up," Sumich said.
"If it was at us, it's not the way we'd like to see things said, but the world turns and it turns very quickly in this game.
"They're odds-on favourite to win the premiership, it would be shattering if they finish anywhere less.
"And I suppose it's like back in the early 1990s, they were odds-on favourites to win a lot of things and didn't do it so we'll just wait and see."
Sumich said the Eagles would not be haunted by the two clubs' last meeting at Subiaco, when the Cats were 20 goals up by the last change.
"It's a different make up of the side, we've got a young group, there's so many different players playing from last time," he said.
"Last time we played the Cats it was disappointing, it was very ordinary, so hopefully tomorrow the boys will put a good foot forward.
"Games are forgotten pretty quickly in this caper because you have to and like I said, Geelong can say what they want, it's their time in the sun at the moment and nobody can question that.
"... But the world turns and you wouldn't want to be saying too much about other sides and how they're going."
Sumich said the Eagles' struggles in the ladder's lower reaches were a new experience for long-time Eagles such as himself and head coach John Worsfold, but it was not all gloom.
"This is the first time in seven years since I've been at the club (as a coach) that I've been in this position and probably even as a player, me and John," he said.
"Yeah, it's tough, but it's a learning curve this year and we've learnt a lot and hopefully we can put it in good stead to go forward to get ourselves back in the eight."
