The West Coast Eagles will work on playing their best football for more sustained periods of time in the wake of two disappointing home losses against Brisbane and the Western Bulldogs.
A consistent effort across four quarters is crucial to the team’s success, with work rate a primary focus for the Eagles as they head into their final match of the year against North Melbourne, and their fourth season in the AFLW competition.
“I think the challenge for us is to understand when we play our best footy, what that looks like, and being able to do this for sustained periods,” Prior said.
“They should be turning up every week wanting to perform and it doesn’t matter whether we’re sitting on top of the ladder or we’re down the bottom.
“We expect that our performances are going in an upward trend, so that’s the motivating factor for our players at the moment. I think we’ve got the players to do it.
“They’ve got to keep turning up and putting in the hard yards and getting this wheel to turn.”
Forward 50 entries will also be reviewed after the Bulldogs match, with the opposition managing to enter their offensive arc on 37 occasions to the Eagles' 17.
This opened up the game for the Bulldogs to finish with 18 scoring shots to West Coast’s three.
“We just haven’t got it in there enough to give those forwards the opportunity, so hopefully we get the ball in there more in our last game against North,” Prior said.
“Then flowing on into next year, to give the forwards the opportunity to hit the scoreboard.
“I think the issue is more up the field getting more entries for us, and I think if you look at our centre bounce over the course of the year, we’ve been well down in that area.
“We need to have a bit more emphasis on what we’re doing to get the ball inside and get the ball going our way to give our forwards more chance and more opportunity.”
West Coast also farewelled inaugural Eagle Courtney Guard, who played her final home game of the season after three years with the club.
Guard has played 22 matches, and finished the match against the Bulldogs with five disposals and five intercepts.
“She’s been fantastic for our group, ‘Guardy,’ everyone’s attracted to her in the sense that she loves being the centre of attention,” Prior said.
“She’s going to be sorely missed, I thought she actually showed a bit across half-back for us tonight when we spoke about effort this week and what we wanted to bring.
“I thought a couple of her efforts across half-back were really telling in her last game.
“So, she leaves on a good note and it’s just a shame we couldn’t send her out on a better note because she’s loved every minute she’s been at this club for the last three years.
“I think she’s given so much to the group, not only on the field but setting culture and standards and that off the field for us.”
As Guard leaves the Eagles, the younger contingent of players continue to develop their craft, with draftee Beth Schilling receiving her opportunity to debut at Optus Stadium on Saturday.
Schilling did some good things off of the half-back line to finish the day with seven disposals, three tackles and four intercepts.
“We got another debutant in Beth Schilling, the five of our draftees all played this year which is fantastic,” Prior said.
“Wasn’t disappointed with her performance at all, I thought she showed a bit, she defended hard when she had to.
“She took a few intercept marks. We might’ve found a player.”