Despite their 33-point loss to the Suns, West Coast Eagles senior coach Michael Prior says the Eagles needs to keep their spirits high if they are to bounce back.

“They’ve got to believe,” Prior said post-match.

“We were a team that didn’t do as well as we would have hoped last year and we showed signs last week that we can win.

“So we’ve got to believe that we are good enough to be successful in this competition.

“Even though we lost this afternoon we are going to stick together and enjoy each other’s company over the next few days knowing we are a better side than that.”

West Coast showed for the second week in a row that they have the ability to finish the game strong scoring quick goals in the final quarter.

However, going into the final term the margin was too great for West Coast to put any real pressure on the Suns despite having a significantly improved performance.

“We tried a few different things positionally going into the second half however I think our endeavour is what changed the most,” Prior said. 

“I thought our last quarter was definitely the best however the game was gone so that’s something we’ve re-iterated to the playing group.”

Over the last few weeks West Coast have shown signs that the list turnover combined with a strong pre-season was starting to pay off.

“What we’ve done over the last few weeks and again in that last quarter was strong,” Prior said.

“We’d like to be a little bit closer to our opposition going into three quarter time, but I think our fitness has really shone through over the last couple of weeks as it did there.

“If we can take anything away from it, the work we’ve done over the last 10-weeks is paying off for us.

“We need to get our first halves right and be with our opposition going into those last quarters if we are going to get over them.”