West Coast coach Adam Simpson is hopeful dazzling forward Willie Rioli Jnr. will join star midfielder Tim Kelly returning to the team for Saturday’s tough away trip against Geelong.
But the Eagles won’t be bolstered by the comebacks of star Elliot Yeo (calf) and Jack Petruccelle (hamstring), who have failed in their bids to return from injury in time for the final round.
Rioli attended his father’s funeral last week and missed the RAC Derby, while ex-Cats onballer Kelly and mid-season draftee Jai Culley have both served suspensions.
“Fingers crossed with Junior Rioli, we think he’s going to return from Darwin early this week, so hope that he’ll be available, obviously Tim will be as well,” Simpson told Channel Seven.
“Yeo and Petruccelle won’t be though.”
Simpson also indicated sore ruck Nic Naitanui would be assessed before a decision was made whether he will travel to face the Cats.
“Obviously he’s not 100 per cent and doing a lot for the club getting up to play. We’ve got to keep weighing that up between doing the right thing for the club and looking after his body,” Simpson said.
“We won’t take any risks if there’s any to be taken this week, but we haven’t assessed that just yet. We’ll talk to him in the next day or two.”
The RAC Derby was a physical contest in the wet and while the Dockers were too good, the understrength Eagles threw everything at Fremantle before going down by 24 points.
There was plenty of feeling between the teams, and a first-quarter melee saw a dozen players – six from both teams – copping fines from the Match Review Officer.
“We didn’t go out there to start a melee, but we wanted to show some physical presence and we thought we did that,” Simpson said.
“When you have a tagging job like we did it sparks a few things with the two clubs.
“It wasn’t our intent to go out and get $20,000 worth of fines but we wanted to make the game physical. I think the conditions suited as well.
“The better team won on the night but we tried everything we could.”
Simpson also voiced the club’s disappointment at a newspaper article on Monday which incorrectly guessed West Coast players wages.
“It’s quite disappointing, actually, to read something like that. It’s not just a little bit off, it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars off in terms of trying to guess what the players wages are,” Simpson said.
“I know the article is nationwide, which is really disappointing on behalf of our players to take a guess like that, that the rest of the article makes no sense because it’s just not true.”
