The West Coast Eagles are focused on delivering a strong response in their first home match for the season against Carlton after an extensive review into a 73-point loss to Gold Coast, coach Michael Prior says.
Prior said the players' disappointment was still lingering from their round two performance, but they are intent on bouncing back against the Blues on Sunday at Mineral Resources Park.
“There’s been disappointment throughout the group which is understandable,” Prior said.
“We can’t go up there and dish up the performance we did and feel any other way.
“We reviewed the game really hard on Monday night, there was a lot of honest conversations, it was very thorough, and I think the group are going to dig in for the week and hopefully respond come Sunday.”
Sunday’s game is not only the Eagles’ first home game of the season, it’s also the first time West Coast have played Carlton for premiership points, and Prior says the group will be prepared.
“We’re looking forward to our first home game of the year,” Prior said.
“I don’t think we’ve played Carlton in our history, that’s where we’re at, so looking forward to the challenge.
“I watched Carlton closely over the last couple of weeks, we know what we’re up against.
“They’re a really strong tackling side, good inside, flick the ball around a little bit with hands, so we’ll be prepared and ready to go come Sunday.”
Eagles captain and experienced leader Emma Swanson said the close-knit team will band together and put in the hard work at training this week.
“The girls are pretty aware of what we dished up and everyone was pretty quick to own the effort piece, across the ground and not just in the midfield,” Swanson said.
“Back to work this week, working with ‘Hammer’ (Hamish Brayshaw) pretty closely to find out ways that we can not let a team get on top of us like that for four quarters.
“AFLW, we always say, is a pretty quick turnaround, you have to get back on the horse pretty quickly.
“There’s a lot of love in our group, you walk in and it’s pretty hard to sulk around for too long, we love being around each other and I think that will help us get back to work pretty quickly.”
Swanson said the team’s focus this week is working to individual strengths and moving the ball more efficiently inside forward 50.
“Definitely our inside game, just getting better bang for buck,” Swanson said.
“It doesn’t matter how many clearances we get or how dominant we can be in the middle, if we’re not getting it forward to kick goals, it’s actually negligible.
“As I said, working pretty closely with ‘Hammer’, a lot of us have different strengths in that area and it’s sometimes something you’ve got to work one on one with him, how to use your body and how to use your size.”
