More exposure for West Coast’s emerging youngsters against arguably the AFL’s best team and the successful returns of a premiership pair were bright spots from a tough day at the Gabba on Saturday.
The Eagles were jumped early by the Lions and trailed by 33 points at the first change, but mitigated some of the scoreboard damage before a late surge by veteran Jack Gunston (six goals) blew the margin out to 81 points.
“I think we were playing the best team in the comp, and it was always going to be hard today. We wanted to start well, we wanted to start the way we attacked the game last week,” coach Adam Simpson said post-match.
“For the first five or six minutes I thought it was a pretty tightly contested game, and then the floodgates opened for 10 or 15 minutes – and they’re so good at doing that. All different types of score sources.
“But we kicked the last two and from quarter-time we made it as hard as we could to score. You don’t want to change the way you move the ball or play the game, but there’s stages this year where we’ve got to adapt and try to mitigate a little bit. I thought our players did that as best they could.
“The last quarter we took the game on a little bit more. It’s a fine line to pull these levers when you’ve got so many young players.
“We’re trying to get our contest right and our effort to put pressure on the game and on the ball, and that wasn’t there.
“When you don’t get that you’ve got to rely on your back half transition and against good sides you can’t get it.”
It was another learning experience for the Eagles, and pleasingly Elijah Hewett (18 disposals, four clearances) and Campbell Chesser (14 disposals) built on their best games in blue and gold last week, while Reuben Ginbey (12) also fought hard in midfield.
In defence, Brady Hough played arguably his best game as an Eagle, taking 14 marks to go with 22 disposals as he kept Lions danger man Charlie Cameron goalless.
“We’ve got three 18-year-olds in the midfield at the moment, so (it was) another game where they get to play on the competition’s best,” Simpson said.
“I thought Hough down back – he must’ve taken 14 or 15 marks – and he played on Cameron for the most part, so the backs had a good workout today.
“Getting Gov (Jeremy McGovern) back into the side, we subbed him at three-quarter time deliberately, got Tom Cole back into the side. The synergy is starting to connect a little bit more with those guys.
“More exposure for Hewett for Reuben and those guys. Its’ a challenge up front for our forwards.
“We’ll take a small step with some of that exposure and we get to hit the Tigers next week. We’ll move on really quick from this game and we’ll get on with playing the Tigers.”
Some cavalry is set to arrive for the Eagles next weekend, led by skipper Luke Shuey and veteran Shannon Hurn, who both missed the flight to Brisbane with soreness.
