West Coast will get to work and reload for next season after a brave 39-point defeat to Brisbane ended the undermanned Eagles’ hopes of playing a seventh-straight finals campaign, coach Adam Simpson says.

Despite missing a host of guns – including Josh Kennedy, Jeremy McGovern, Tim Kelly and Brad Sheppard – the youthful Eagles gave the Lions a major scare at the Gabba before the home side kicked away late with a top-four spot up for grabs.

There were some massive performances from superstar ruck Nic Naitanui (24 disposals, 11 clearances), skipper Luke Shuey (35, 12) and 150-gamer Elliot Yeo (30, five) in midfield but it wasn’t quite enough to propel West Coast to victory.

It left the Eagles with a 10-12 win-loss record for an injury-marred 2021, and with plenty of work to do to bounce back next season.

“It’s not something we’re reflecting on right now, it’s obvious the inconsistency we’ve had this year and a whole wide range of things we’ll look into,” Simpson said post-match.

“The injuries, the synergy, the fluctuations in-game, all those things we’re going to look at. We’ll dig pretty deep on it all and we’ve got to get better.

“We get an opportunity – it’s been a pretty big campaign over the last several years. We need to take a breath, work out how we’re going to get better. It starts with everything in our department, so we’ll get onto that.

“I still think there’s lots of talent on our list. There’s some good kids coming through. Obviously we’ll look at getting our list better.

“I think there’s still plenty of growth in some of our younger players. Our senior players, look at tonight, you can’t say they’re not holding up their end.

“We’ve got to bring it all together, we’ve got to make sure we get some synergy back and we need a really good pre-season.”

While the final margin blew out late, the Eagles pushed a top-four team all the way and were just five points down two minutes into the final term after Jamie Cripps snapped his second goal in 30 seconds.

With the likes of Connor West, Jarrod Brander, Josh Rotham, Jamaine Jones, Harry Edwards and Jake Waterman coming into the side, there was plenty to take from the gritty display.

“I thought our boys were pretty brave. Obviously not at Brisbane’s standard, but we were a little bit undermanned. Obviously both teams had a lot to play for,” Simpson said.

“Energy and effort was there from the start. Unfortunately there’s been too many times this year we haven’t brought that same intensity when we’ve needed to.

“We’ve got to learn and grow from that. But there was some positive signs tonight in terms of the younger team, the spirit.

“We learned a good lesson and we probably had our youngest backline in eight years, really, with Tom Barrass being our oldest player and they’re a very good forward line as well.

“We’ll take some growth out of this game, whereas there’s been some games in recent times we’ve just been disappointing.”