West Coast are set to face Sydney Swans for the first time on Sunday at Henson Park and will be looking to bounce back from the 53-point loss to the Blues in round three.
Eagles coach Michael Prior said the team has been focused on delivery into the forward line following Sunday’s 12.5 (77) to 3.6 (24) defeat.
“We reviewed the game like we do every week,” Prior said.
“We’ve really focused in on some ball use stuff, all over the field really, and how we’re getting out of our back half, and how we’re delivering it to our forwards.
“We thought there was some patches in the game where there was some good ball movement, but what really let us down was turnovers and how we delivered it into our front half, not giving our forwards a chance and not kicking to their advantage, so we focused heavily on that on Monday.”
Emerging leader and newly appointed vice-captain Bella Lewis said there is still plenty of time to turn the season around.
“It’s only round three,” Lewis said.
“Yes, it feels like a bit of a slump at the moment but it’s so early on in the season.
“Most of the time you forget the beginning of the season if the end of the season goes well.”
Following an intense pre-season, Prior said fitness is not an issue or reason for the unsuccessful start to 2023.
“All the numbers that we’ve done over pre-season and our testing results show us that we’re fitter than this time last year,” Prior said.
“The game time is higher in games because we’ve added an extra two minutes to quarters, so the GPS numbers are telling us that we’re running the games out well.
“But there’s just little things in our game that we can do to save some energy, but the fitness thing doesn’t come into the equation for me.”
The Eagles are the second-youngest team in the league and Prior said he hopes the recent losses will motivate the developing squad to continue to work harder.
“I hope they do, I hope they impact, I hope they hurt,” Prior said.
“Because if they don’t, we’re not going to move forward.
“I think at this level of competition, we’re not in junior football, you don’t go and carry on with your mates after a loss, they’ve got to hurt, and they’ve got to mean something, and you’ve got to get back on the horse and work your way through it.
“We’re in a little bit of a rut at the moment but the only way to get through that is to work really hard and our group is committed to doing that.”
The Swans come into this weekend’s game on the back of a 55-point loss to Brisbane and Prior said the Eagles will need to step up in the midfield if they want to be competitive against a talented Sydney squad.
“I think they’ve got a good core midfield group,” Prior said.
“Chloe Molloy going through there as well and they’ve obviously got dominant rucks, and their forwards have been hitting the scoreboard.
“I know it didn’t go their way on the weekend but it’s a really good, talented, young group of players so we’re going to be tested through the middle part of the ground.
“We’ve gone up and down a bit in that area, and last week was a little bit of a rise from what we delivered the week before, but we’ve got to be on our game in the midfield and it’s going to be a key battle to the outcome of this game.”
