1. There’s a new fan favourite in the house. Every time Connor West took possession you could hear the sense of excitement in the crowd as he took the game on with his speed and aggression at the contest. In his best performance at senior level since being snared in last year’s mid-season rookie draft, West accrued 16 kicks and 13 handpasses, won five clearances and laid seven tackles in an eye-catching display.
2. While West provided great energy, two of his more experienced colleagues in the midfield also produced strong performances. Tim Kelly was probably the Eagles best as he gathered 32 possessions – an even split of kicks and handballs – gained a whopping 507 metres with those touches and also won five clearances. Jack Redden, in his 250th senior game, had 20 possessions, 10 of them contested and applied seven tackles.
3. The imbalance in the inside 50 count that has been a constant in recent weeks was closed to some extent, but still Melbourne had the ball inside their forward 50 arc 59 times compared to 35. That was clearly an issue as the Demons marched to a 74-point victory. Melbourne kicked 5.10 from turn over, to the Eagles 2.2 but one statistic that would have pleased the Eagles coaching staff was the tackle count. They led that 61-51 which was a strong indication of their effort, while they lost the contested possession count 119-138. Kelly (13 contested possessions), West (12) and Redden (10) were the individual leaders for the Eagles.
4. It seems even the club’s fans cannot avoid the horrors of the 2022 season with the lowest attendance for an Eagles game since moving to Optus Stadium in 2018. Only 27,448 fans made it to the game and while some of those vacant seats were a choice to stay home, others were the result of WA’s COVID-19 spike and a train disruption about an hour before the game. An incident on the Armadale line saw trains stopped and many fans, frustrated at the slow transfer by bus, opted to return home. Many persisted and could not get there until close to quarter-time.
5. The defensive unit has seen plenty of football in their half this season and again they stood up, with acting captain Jeremy McGovern and fellow key back Tom Barrass leading the way. McGovern had 23 possessions, seven of them contested, and took six marks while Barrass had 15 kicks and four handballs, taking 10 marks. Both he and McGovern took two intercept marks each. Running defender Liam Duggan was also solid with 26 possessions and seven marks.
