To bolster a West Coast flag claim for 2017, McGovern - who is already regarded as one of the game's finest defensive stoppers - must further develop flexibility in his scoring avenues as part of his natural evolution as potential match-winner.

Simpson cannot afford to leave it until deep into losing finals to pull last resort tactics, sending a trouble-shooter like McGovern into his scoring zones if established forwards Josh Kennedy, Mark LeCras and Jack Darling have misfired.

The Eagles boss heads into his fourth season in charge after no-holds barred revelations to eradicate haunting demons with some of his most important scoring weapons on the back of alarming finals failures during his three-year reign in charge.

Proven scoring guns Kennedy, Darling and LeCras have fallen alarmingly short of expected standards at successive finals that a brutally blunt Simpson conceded have been addressed with his players and support staff.

Simpson or his advisors should turn the blowtorch on performances from the coaching box in the uncompromising blast furnace heat of a horrid grand final thumping from Hawthorn in 2015 and then to last season's unexpected premiers Western Bulldogs in Perth to open the finals series.

The highly decorated former North Melbourne player and accomplished finals performer needs to have a bigger variety of arsenal to potentially eradicate established failings on the biggest occasions.

He needs to act quicker in big game crisis with moves to possibly swing outcomes more in West Coast favour.

One significant advancement for Simpson is to radically develop McGovern as a go-to forward.

With an unlikely 2015 flag all but gone against Hawthorn at three-quarter-time and West Coast 50 points down as well as in last year's elimination final in Perth with the Eagles six-goals behind, Simpson threw McGovern forward at the final change.

McGovern booted the last two goals against the Hawks after Kennedy had failed to score at all in the biggest engagement of his career and the dual Coleman medallist as the league's biggest goal-source was also well out of sorts against the red-hot Bulldogs in an elimination final upset last September.

Kennedy booted the Eagles opening goal eight minutes into what was widely anticipated as a West Coast win at home and then only his second in dying moments of the 47-point defeat, as Darling managed a couple and LeCras one among his 17 disposals pressing well up field.

Kennedy, 29, is roundly considered a genuine threat to again possibly head the game's scoring.

It's on the biggest stages and against the more accomplished front-end title contenders with tight-checking defensive divisions that leaves doubts on Kennedy being a crucial scoring supply when it counts most of all.

Darling and LeCras have also been questioned when games are at their tightest.

"In big games and when the pressure is at its hottest, I think that our players are the first to admit they haven't handled it as well as they could," Simpson said on Channel Seven just days from the new premiership season.

"That's something we're working on.

"Those types of questions will be asked all the time until we get back into those situations.

"We won't see that until the next time we get there. Hopefully that's this year."

Finding alternatives will alleviate intense scrutiny on the established Eagles scoring trio as well as add critical firepower to Simpson's weaponry.

McGovern as an accomplished swingman must be explored during home-and-away appointments

And possibly even against some of the league's struggling combinations where West Coast can be almost assured of wins on their way to highly anticipated presence around the top four come September.

He is hardly an proven goal-sneak with just 19 majors from his 55 outings so far as one of the game's rapidly rising star all-rounders.

But Simpson is almost duty bound as Eagles boss to swing the big intercepting All-Australian back man into the Eagles forward line regularly throughout the 2017 home and away campaign.

If McGovern isn't developed as a flexible big man in the mould of Eagles premiership swingman Adam Hunter last decade and Hawthorn ace Jarryd Roughead, it will reflect on Simpson's own maturity in the unforgiving head coaching industry.

It's too late when a game has gone in a cut-throat final to pull trump moves with such an obvious talent as McGovern as a last resort.

It all needs delicate refinement through experimentation and persistence to develop proven capacity to work out and change course of a contest for the player and team.

It needs rehearsal and cultivation to generate serious potential for success when it counts most.

The big-bodied and robust defender should even pinch-hit in the ruck in early qualifying engagements.

That diversity bolsters on-ball big man depth as West Coast get through without lead hit-out specialists Nic Naitanui and Scott Lycett as they recover from long term injuries.

Naitanui will miss the entire season with his recovery from a complete knee reconstruction after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament late last year and Lycett has had his left shoulder rebuilt from a serious dislocation in his first practice game back from a severe knee injury.

Veteran big man Drew Petrie and injury-ravaged former Geelong big man Nathan Vardy will carry Eagles lead ruck duties while waiting for a return of the front-liners.

Simpson and his advisory team cannot afford to delay optimising still untapped capabilities from the gifted McGovern.

Failure to come up with potentially match-winning alternatives to cover possible failings from other front-line priorities when it counts will be a dereliction in coaching responsibilities.

The move is glaringly apparent.