Disappointed to go down by 52 points against Essendon, senior coach Michael Prior says his side remains a work in progress but he still saw some key positives from West Coast's emerging players.  

Essendon ran riot in the first half of the round three clash at Mineral Resource Park moving the ball quickly and winning easy clearances looking like a very cohesive side.  

“You got the pay credit to Essendon, I thought they were fantastic early and I thought they dominated the ball,” Prior said.  

“We slowly started to turn it around, we got back in the fight at least.

“It took us a while to get that happening but when we won the hard ball and got our hands on it at clearance the game started to change a little bit in our favour.  

“But the damage was already done at that point.”

Key young players stood up and worked to stop the runaway Bombers including coveted first round pick Ella Roberts who played bravely in what was arguably her best performance yet for the Eagles.  

“Roberts was outstanding today, from a coaching point of view I wanted her forward, I wanted her in the midfield but there is only one of her, so we had to deal with that,” Prior said.

However young players thriving doesn’t come without the push of leadership as skipper Emma Swanson led her side back well with an impressive performance.  

“Our captain led by example today, she was outstanding,” Prior explained.  

“She really led the way with courageous marks in our defensive 50 early in the game and set the tone for how to attack the footy and win the contested ball, so others need to jump on board and follow her lead.”

Coming away from the game, while disappointed Prior pointed out some key changes from last year’s West Coast side and is still confident that his side is still building towards the point that results eventually flip.

“Essendon have done really well with their recruiting and a lot of them played together in the VFL," he said.

“When you look at us, we turned our list over massively by 15 which is the most in the competitions history.

“It’s going to take us a little bit of time, but we believe we are on the right path, we believe in our players and believe what we are doing off the field and it will turn at some point for us.”