In another tough outing for the Eagles, the home side has fallen to Carlton by 53 points at Mineral Resources Park on Sunday.

Eagles coach Michael Prior said the team knew what they were up against when facing Carlton but couldn’t sustain pressure around the ground in the 12.5 (77) to 3.6 (24) defeat.

“Disappointing again from a results point of view,” Prior said.

“We knew what sort of game we were going to get from Carlton, a lot of numbers around the ball, they flood back really well, very congested.

“So, in and around the contest it was going to be on, and we set ourselves for that all week, and I thought our first quarter we really delivered on that and it was pleasing to see.

“But after that we didn’t maintain it and our pressure factor fell away, inside 50s fell away, a lot of things fell away after that so there was little glimpses and patches in the game but overall, we couldn’t sustain it.

During the week, the Eagles coaching staff made the decision to omit emerging ruck Sarah Lakay from the side, despite coming up against Carlton’s two-time All-Australian ruck Breann Moody.

“It’s quite simple, we had to make a change,” Prior said.

“We can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing and getting the same result.

“Sarah (Lakay) is fully aware of where she’s at and what she needs to work on.

“We knew we were coming up against the All-Australian ruck as well, but we have to make change, we have to keep finding ways and it was a good learning curve for our girls today.”

A common factor in West Coast’s first three games of 2023 has been the inability to sustain positive ball movement for four quarters, and Prior said the team needs to respond quicker in games.

“I don’t think it’s a fitness thing, all our number and results from pre-season tell us that we’re fitter than we were this time last year,” Prior said.

“I think it’s a mental thing and we need to adapt and respond quicker than we do in games, especially when things aren’t going our way.

“We need to identify things that are going wrong in the game earlier, and that’s both from a coaching point of view and a playing point of view and be able to adapt to that.

“Even in the last quarter, we saw some really positive ball movement that wasn’t there for the middle two quarters at least so, it’s there, we can do it, we just need to be able to do it for longer.”