West Coast will consider rotating the captaincy in coming weeks to continue the growth of the team’s young leaders, coach Adam Simpson says.

In the absence of skipper Luke Shuey (ankle/hamstring) and vice-captain Jeremy McGovern (hamstring), the Eagles have been leaning on reigning John Worsfold medallist Tom Barrass to lead the team.

With midfielder Dom Sheed returning this round against Richmond, plus Liam Duggan and Oscar Allen in the side, the opportunity is available to also hand those developing leaders experience as the front man.

“We’ve had some good opportunities for young players to step up with Barrass leading the team and we might explore in the next few weeks rotating the captaincy to see what these young leaders can do,” Simpson said.

“Sheed, Duggan, Allen and these guys, just to give them exposure because they’re learning a lot on the run and it’s going to pay us back.

“Obviously Tom is our vice-captain but we did this in ’14 I think so we’ll look at it in future if we need to.”

Simpson confirmed Sheed had overcome a throat issue and would play his first game in five weeks against the Tigers, while former captain Shannon Hurn is fine to play after a heavy landing from a marking contest in the heavy loss to Carlton.

The Eagles took a step backwards against the Blues and the coach is demanding a return to the same effort that typified the understrength Eagles’ competitive start to the season.

While recognising progression with youth isn’t linear, Simpson acknowledged the fans’ frustration was also felt internally.

“We’ve made some changes in the off-season, we’ve gone in a different direction, we’ve hit the draft, we want to play a certain way and up until round three we had four injuries on our list,” he said.

“The last four weeks, whilst we’ve just been struck down with injuries, we haven’t changed our plan, we haven’t changed our process with development, with the style of play and what we’re chasing – and we want effort.

“That’s the number one thing and on the weekend I don’t think we brought enough.

“That’s the start point and the finish point, bring effort, bring intensity and we’ll keep working on the things we think are going to pay us back in the long-term, it’s just not a quick fix.

“There’s going to be some ups-and-downs and last week wasn’t good enough.”

Saturday’s clash will be the Eagles’ only match at the MCG this season, and the club has also been granted the opportunity to train at the home of football on Friday before the date with the desperate Tigers.

Richmond has also won just one game this year, and drew the season-opener against Carlton, but poses a difficult challenge on their home turf.

“Obviously, Richmond are a very good side there and they get some players back as well,” Simpson said.

“Just to play on the ground and our younger players who haven’t played there, it’s going to be a good experience.

“There’s probably still 14-odd premiership players in that side. Chuck in (Jacob) Hopper and (Tim) Taranto, and (Dion) Prestia comes back in.

“I know they haven’t had too many wins of late but their style is still the same, they look very dangerous to us and they’ve been in every game.

“We’re not delusional about the Tigers this week.”