In a tell-all interview with News Corp, Chick said that the use of cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine, Xanax, Valium and Prednisone, which is used to treat asthma, was commonplace at West Coast.

The 2006 premiership player also heavily criticised the leadership shown by West Coast's hierarchy during that period and believed they weren't made fully accountable for what went on.

But Worsfold, who was the coach of the Eagles during that controversial chapter in their history, not only dismissed Chick's suggestion that "a tray of medicines" was freely available to players before every game but insisted the club worked diligently to change its culture once they recognised there was a serious issue.

"[I'm] disappointed because really from my perspective there's not really much to substantiate all that," Worsfold told 3AW on Saturday morning.

"That's not to say Daniel wasn't up to mischief at different times, but some of the way he portrayed it as though people at West Coast had a tray of medicines that players could take pre-game – that obviously wasn't happening.

"In terms of what Daniel took in his own time and out of our sights, I really have no idea about that.

"We dealt with this issue very, very heavily and strongly for three or four years from 2006 on, and none of these issues had ever surfaced. We had no idea of what Daniel was believing in.

"We smashed ourselves with the way we dealt with that over three years - way above just worrying about winning games of footy."

Worsfold explained it was almost impossible to ascertain that there was a drugs problem at the club around the time rumours started to circulate in 2003-2004 due to the evasiveness of the players in question when confronted about it.

"The initial response from the players that we had heard rumours about [was] flat denial - 'It's ridiculous', 'I can't believe you're even asking me those questions'," he said.

"So they were very strong on not letting anything out.

"Then as rumours got louder and we started to see some signs, we took action.

"There was never ever any evidence straight that we could see of players using drugs but where we could nail them when they weren't living up to the standards that we were expecting, players were punished.

"Ben Cousins lost the captaincy, which was a big call, and the following year [2007] he was suspended ... before he was finally sacked completely."

The position that West Coast now finds themselves in some 10 years after their drugs crisis is a source of great pride for Worsfold.

"We needed to rebuild the Eagles culture, and I'm really proud of what the Eagles have got, what [current coach] Adam Simpson walked in to coach and he's publicly said about the attitude of the players, the culture, it is top class," he said.

"We've never hid away from the fact that we had a few players that their attitude towards being elite athletes wasn't at the right standard, it was poor. But ... we put a lot of things in place to make sure that no other players would come in to the West Coast footy club and go down that pathway and I think the record stands up now."

Worsfold is now the hot favourite to win the Essendon coaching job.

Jeff Kennett has been a very vocal critic of the Bombers hiring "yesterday's coach" but Worsfold said the former Hawthorn president was in no position to make an informed comment.

"He would have no idea what Essendon are thinking and looking at and what their plans are and therefore what person would fit what their plans are," Worsfold said.

"Jeff's making assumptions there around yesterday's coaches. David Parkin got sacked four times and went on to be one of the great coaches of all time, I'm yet to be sacked.

"He [Kennett] doesn't always get it quite right all the time, I'm sure he almost wanted to sack Alastair Clarkson."

Worsfold coached the Eagles in 281 games from 2002-2013, including eight finals series, three preliminary finals, two grand finals and the 2006 premiership.