West Coast will dive into the COVID Contingency List and hand opportunities to WAFL players against North Melbourne, with coach Adam Simpson revealing 12 Eagles from last round’s team are unavailable due to the AFL’s Health and Safety Protocols.
The team has delayed its charter flight to Melbourne until Saturday to work through the situation.
“We’ll be leaning on the top-up players that become available to us in the last few weeks. Whether we use three, five possibly, it’s just where we’re at,” Simpson said on Friday.
“Working with the AFL (about) the situation we’re under, the contingencies we use and if we wake up tomorrow and get another four or five what that looks like.
“When we travel, if you unfortunately get a couple of cases in Melbourne you’re stuck in Melbourne.
“We’re working through a situation we all thought might happen and we’re the ones working through it.
“That’s just the way it is.”
With COVID currently sweeping through Western Australia the Eagles have been doing everything in their power to mitigate risk, but that has been made more difficult by the large number of fathers in the group.
“Absolutely, it’s put us in a different position. You don’t want to compare what’s going on but I dare say we’ve got more kids than most clubs – I think there’s 13 dads, maybe, 10 to 13,” Simpson said.
“Definitely the family situation is probably the one you can’t control and when we train together, tackle and play, it’s unavoidable.
“That’s just the reality. We’re no different to anyone else in the community.
“We’ve just got a lot of fathers in our side, which adds to the situation.”
West Coast will name a starting 22 on Friday afternoon at 2pm WA time, with a number of debutants set to be unveiled after four Eagles pulled on the wings for the first time in round one.
“It’s just opportunity. It’s opportunity to perform and win in adversity. We want to be resilient and these are opportunities to display that,” Simpson said.
“Having the right attitude is the number one priority – we can control that.
“We can control effort and workrate and the rest of it, we’ll do our best.
“I’m still in a positive state. There’s no point crying about it, we’ve just got to get on with it.
“The unity amongst the group is really good. There’s good spirit amongst the club and group, which is critical in these situations.”
Amid the inclusions will be returning stars Luke Shuey, Tim Kelly, Liam Ryan and Jack Darling.
“He’s good to go. Really happy for him that he gets to play,” Simpson said of Darling.
“Obviously the circumstances are a little bit different with what’s going on and there’s a few stories behind the stories we haven’t been able to share just due to the situations we’ve been in.
“It’s going to be the first game Tim Kelly and Willie Rioli play together, ever.
“There’s some things there, some debutants like I said, there’ll be some positives we can take out of this and we are also playing to win.
“As much as that’s a challenge, that’s what we’re here for.”
