West Coast coach John Worsfold claims the Eagles could have won five AFL premierships by now had they possessed their own stand-alone reserves team in the West Australian Football League.

Both the Eagles and Dockers are desperate to field their own reserves team in the WAFL by next year in order to better manage their fringe and emerging players.

As it stands, West Coast and Fremantle players are spread across the nine existing WAFL clubs.

Last week, the West Australian Football Commission knocked back a joint bid by West Coast and Fremantle to field their own WAFL teams from next year.

But the issue isn't dead and buried just yet, with the two AFL clubs working feverishly on a new proposal to present to the WAFL clubs and the WAFC.

The Eagles have won three premierships since entering the competition in 1987, but Worsfold believed that figure would have been higher had the club fielded their own stand-alone reserves team, much like defending premiers Collingwood and ladder-leaders Geelong are able to do in the Victorian Football League.

"I would like to think that the Eagles could have won five premierships in 25 years with this model, with a developing team," Worsfold said on Thursday.

"So if we're happy to sit back and say three every 25 years is enough and (combined with) Fremantle ... three premierships in 41 years.

"If we're all happy with that we'll just float along but if we want five, six, seven or eight premierships between the two clubs in the next 40 years then I think we need to look at making changes.

"That's the reason we've put so much work into this proposal - for the development of your players and to continue developing your team, to get stronger growth and less steep declines when you do have big changes of players (and) retirements.

"They tend to come in clumps because of the way the draft works.

"I think this system (of having a reserves side) will smooth out the climb for the teams, so rather than dipping all the way down to really low parts of the ladder you can potentially rebuild your side and maybe be just outside the eight and always challenging.

"So for the club's ... long-term success, I think that's why we're asking for it."

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