Coach Adam Simpson said West Coast must maintain an optimistic mindset and build on their four-quarter effort ahead of Saturday’s clash with Adelaide.

The undermanned Eagles outfit have battled through a difficult season – including being blown away in their seventh consecutive loss to the Western Bulldogs – but are up for the fight this weekend as they continue to focus on ‘little wins’.

Despite conceding there’s no ‘quick fix’ to selection woes this season, Simpson said the group’s perspective remains positive as they continue to develop more inexperienced players at AFL level.

“We can’t shy away from it. It’s not a quick fix, we’ll hopefully get seven or eight players back by the end of the year. But we’ve got to improve with what we’ve got as well,” Simpson said.

“That’s our challenge as a coaching group, stay balanced, where you’re still looking for little wins but also not accepting the big losses.

“I don’t want to go into a game with a defeatist attitude, so we’ve got to keep learning a style that we want to one day be successful with.

“Changing things every week just to mitigate the losses, I don’t know if that’s the best way to develop.

“We’ll still go with trying to set up the game to win, get better, turn a quarter into a half, turn a half into three quarters and hopefully get some success in the future.”

Emerging young talent Brady Hough is one of the silver linings to come from the weekend’s 101-point loss to the Bulldogs, impressing on the big stage in his fifth game at AFL level.

Easily amongst the Eagles best, the exciting young defender collected 23 disposals and took a thrilling 11 marks, second only to one of the Bulldogs’ most experienced midfielders in Josh Dunkley, who finished with 12.

“He’s part of our future,” Simpson said.

“We’d love to keep him in the side for most of the year, at the moment we haven’t got a lot of selection issues, in terms of there’s not many people to select, so it’s a no brainer.

“There’s some kids playing at the WAFL level, they’re probably a week or two away, as soon as we get them to the point where they can get in and start playing, we’ll work on getting those kids in as well."

With a number of soldiers still down, West Coast also look to boost their stocks in tomorrow’s midseason draft and have two selection spots available.

“All the kids you speak to, it’s a different circumstance, midseason draft,” Simpson said.

“They miss an opportunity in the draft last year, so I’m sure they would reflect on that, look to improve, have a big pre-season.

“They obviously excelled in the first half of this season, in the junior level.

“That’s what you see with all of them, and you hopefully get someone who’s grown and developed enough that you know they’re going to get drafted at the end of the year.

“You can get in front of it, that’s the purpose of the midseason draft.

“We’ll hit the draft tomorrow, we’ll hit the draft next year, and we’ll try and keep growing our senior players as well.”