West Perth has announced midfielder Luke Meadows has been appointed as the new captain for the 2025 WAFL season.
After spending several years in the leadership group – including vice-captaincy in 2018 and 2022, the 31-year-old was voted in by his peers to take over the captaincy from Dean Munns.
Meadows is one of the Falcons’ most decorated players, with three third-place finishes in the League Best and Fairest and four features in the WA side in the State games. In 2015, he also received the Coaches Award.
The Falcons also announced the leadership group, with Nathan Alexandre, Tyler Keitel and Conal Lynch sharing the vice-captaincy, while former Eagle Josh Rotham and Kane Bevan round out the group.
When asked what type of leader Meadows wanted to be, he says he wanted to lead with action and wouldn’t change too much of his usual style.
“I do say my bit when it’s needed, but I’m not going to go above and beyond what I am as a person,” he told SportFM.
“Obviously, you probably need a bit of a mix of leading by action, being a good role model and modelling those behaviours. I think that’s very important because if you’re just all talking, you don’t back it up, then it’s hard for people to buy into.
“I’m just going to continue being myself, doing the things that my family and people I’ve been around for a number of years have instilled in me and go about it that way.”
West Perth has not featured in WAFL Finals since their premiership in 2022, having just missed out in 2023 and finishing in eighth last season.
However, Meadows believes with more young players getting experience and strong recruiting in the off-season, West Perth can return to finals this season.
“I go in every week thinking I’m going to win the game so I don’t see why not,” he said.
“You know we’ve got a pretty handy list. we’ve got Josh Rotham, Sam Rotham back, Roan Steele from over east and Matt McKenzie who are both stars. Our depth is looking pretty good.
“Obviously we didn’t get the results last year but that gave us the opportunity to blood and get some experience into some of the young boys.
“Most of them have all taken the next step this year and that’ll obviously strengthen up our depth and then the young boys performing as well.”
It’s been a promising start for West Perth, getting two strong wins against East Perth and West Coast in the WAFL Preseason League this past fortnight.
West Perth held off 2024 grand finalists East Perth 87-74 at Joondalup Arena, with reigning Bernie Naylor Medallist kicking five goals. The following week, West Perth handed West Coast a 64-point thumping, also at Joondalup Arena.
This weekend, West Perth are preparing to host East Fremantle in one final preseason showdown before the regular season commences on April 5th.
Meadows says the results are important in building a winning culture – especially within a young side.
“We’ve been blooding a few young boys in there as well. I think feeling that winning culture and things like that is definitely important,” he said.
“Obviously, there’s no points up for grabs, but you can still play in the right manner and do the things that you want to see. You never know your full opposition as far as their preparation, and how their week has been.
“At the end of the day, it’s still footy, so when it’s a hit out we’re always trying to win the game, that’s for sure.”
IMAGE: AFL Photos