1. After leaking important goals late and giving up the lead against Gold Coast and Geelong, the West Coast Eagles gave St Kilda no space in the dying minutes of Tuesday’s game and locked the ball in to take home their first win of the season. West Coast’s Sarah Lakay and Dana Hooker were two of the most impressive in the final minutes of the match, with Lakay sniping an attempted St Kilda score and taking a key mark inside the goal square, with Hooker’s tackle pressure also key in thwarting any final attempts at goal for the Saints.

2. Forward 50 pressure was something senior coach Michael Prior had been pushing over the last few weeks, and West Coast ensured the ball was locked inside of their offensive arc for a majority of the match, which turned out to be make or break in the last few minutes of the game. The Eagles spent 54:46 minutes in front as opposed to St Kilda’s 04:38, a stark contrast from last week’s match with West Coast spending 01:15 minutes in front to Geelong’s 48:17.

3. Around the ground, West Coast beat out St Kilda in key areas, including marks inside 50 (three to seven), contested possessions (94 to 87) and inside 50s (31 to 27). The Eagles also created more scoring opportunities with 12 shots to the Saints' 10. Individual scoring opportunities have also increased, with West Coast having four shots on goal in round one against Fremantle and five opportunities against Adelaide in round three.

4. After Prior’s comments too few were sharing the load on-field, the talent looked much more evenly dispersed in the match against St Kilda, with senior players and West Coast’s younger contingent all standing up across the day. Dana Hooker (20 disposals, five tackles) and Emma Swanson (19, six) were amongst the best for the match, as were Bella Lewis (17, six) and Mikayla Bowen (13, six).

5. West Coast’s recruitment of Aimee Schmidt and Evie Gooch is also proving successful, with Schmidt again one of the Eagles’ goal scorers for the day. The aerially gifted forward has kicked a goal in all but one of West Coast’s five matches and is currently the Eagles’ top goal scorer for the year. Evie Gooch was also sturdy in the backline, finishing the day with four intercepts and six rebound 50s. Gooch is currently averaging the highest amount of rebound 50s (4.8) in the West Coast group, and is second only to Belinda Smith in intercept possessions (5.3).