The West Coast Eagles players have some homework to do this week leading into their round 10 matchup with the Adelaide Crows at Mineral Recourses Park.

Following an eight-point defeat at the hands of the Western Bulldogs on Saturday, Eagles’ caretaker coach Rohan McHugh has praised the team for their second-half fightback but said the developing group will focus on individual learnings this week.

Unable to get the win in his first game at the helm, McHugh said the Bulldogs took control of the game early and were playing the game on their terms.

“It’s disappointing, we just spoke about it and we don’t want to shy away from being disappointed,” McHugh said.

“I said to the girls, we need to be disappointed, but we really need to know why we’re disappointed.

“It certainly was a hard-fought game and I was proud of how they responded, but we just gave too much rope early, probably let the ‘Doggies’ play the game on their terms early in the game and then we were playing catch up from there unfortunately.”

McHugh said the impact of a challenging week for the team potentially played a role in the slow start.

“We actually thought our work rate was a little bit down, which probably took us by surprise to be honest,” McHugh said.

“The girls were fired up and ready to go, but maybe the big week that we’ve had took more out of the girls than we thought, they were just a bit flat early.

“But, pleasingly, we’ve been in that position this year a lot, where we’ve been flat and the opposition has been owning the game and we haven’t been able to wrestle it back, and they wrestled it back, so there’s a real positive in that.”

Stepping into the coaching role with two games remaining in the season, McHugh said despite the loss, he’s loving the experience.  

“I would have liked it to be a little bit easier in the first half, but I loved it,” McHugh said.

“We had to make some changes and we made some changes, some positional stuff, some structural stuff, because we just couldn’t let the game keep going the way it was going.

“We had some good help from our assistant coaches, and we communicated really well in the box I thought so, it would have been nice to get the W, but unfortunately, it doesn’t happen all the time.”

West Coast captain Emma Swanson once again produced an outstanding effort for her side, finishing with a team-high 28 disposals, seven marks and seven tackles.

“I thought ‘Swanny’ was great, she’s great every week,” McHugh said.

“We had to use her in a different position to try and get some drive and settle us back a little bit, but then we probably lost a little bit in the middle of the ground by taking her out, so it’s always a balance as to how we do that.

“’Swanny’ is just a gun, she goes every week and delivers every week for us.”

The Eagles suffered some missed opportunities throughout the game which the Bulldogs capitalised with on the scoreboard, and McHugh said it’s up to the coaching staff to educate the developing team going forward.

“It’s for our group to learn, the game is still growing, and our group is still growing,” McHugh said.

“So those little things, we have to make sure that we educate them on and show them how much they hurt.

“We don’t shy away from that either, they need to learn them, and the girls are hurting about them too, they wear the emotions, they do really hurt.

“You lose the game by eight points and we probably coughed up two or three (goals) pretty easy.

“There’s no point ranting and raving in the box, it’s about educating, and so we’ll educate the girls on that and have individual conversations and make sure they don’t beat themselves up about it too much.”

West Coast take on second-placed Adelaide in their final game of the season, and McHugh has tasked the team with doing some additional research on their opposition.

“We’ve got Adelaide next week so, I can’t wait for that, I said to the girls just then, we get to come up against the best,” McHugh said.

“We’ll have some individual learnings this week, and I told them to get ready to do some research on who you’re going to play on next week because if nothing else, they’re going to learn this week.”