The West Coast Eagles will wrap up their 2023 campaign on Saturday at Mineral Resources Park when they face the Adelaide Crows.

Coming off a disappointing eight-point loss to the Western Bulldogs in round nine, Eagles’ caretaker coach Rohan McHugh said the team took a lot out of Monday’s review of the game.  

“We had a really good review on Monday, a good, solid review, probably a little bit longer that we normally take,” McHugh said.

“That was really good to go through as a team, lots of learnings, I’m big on making sure win or lose, we learn, so we certainly did that.

“Personally, I had a bit of time to reflect as well, which was nice, my feelings haven’t changed, I loved it, would have been nice to get the W, but the review was really good, and the girls trained so well today and took some things out of the review so really excited for the weekend.”

McHugh said the team has already started implementing their learnings from last weekend, ahead of Saturday’s clash with the Crows.

“Our team defence probably let us down a little bit on the weekend,” McHugh said.

“We just gave the ‘Doggies’ too much space, and we’ve spoken about Adelaide already and said if we give Adelaide that much space we’re going to be in trouble on the weekend, so we need to get that right and they did that really well today, they worked really hard on the track today.

“And just probably some missed opportunities, just some execution stuff and in particular inside 50, we missed a few opportunities, but the good thing was, we gave ourselves plenty of chances to get it in there, so lots to take away from it but a couple of things to work on pretty quickly.”

Adelaide currently sits in second spot on the AFLW ladder, and the young Eagles side are looking forward to the challenge of coming up against some of the best players in the competition.

“We’ve got a bit of a ‘why not’ attitude this week,” McHugh said.

“Why not, why can’t we beat Adelaide, St Kilda beat Brisbane on the weekend, why can’t we put ourselves up against the best players and showcase what we’ve got?

“We’ve got plenty of talent in our group, I think they’ve probably just struggled to bring it out in themselves a little bit this year, and that’s what it is this week, it’s our last game for a long time so, that’s the attitude this week, why not?

“There is some individual matchups and some stuff I’ve asked them to have a look at, and they will get more detail on that today, and they will look at that between now and Saturday.”

Talented teenager and Rising Star hopeful Ella Roberts said the team has a lot of respect for caretaker coach McHugh and what he has brought to the team so far.

“’Rowie’ has been great, all the girls have a lot of respect for him and love him as a person and as a coach,” Roberts said.

“He’s been great, a new voice which is really exciting.

“The weekend was obviously a bit disappointing, but I think we definitely played good bits of footy, and I think we got a bit unlucky at times when the ‘Doggies’ capitalised with three or four goals off free shots or 50s.

“We were just a bit undisciplined with that, but I think there was a lot to take out of it as well.”

Roberts has been a shining light for West Coast in what has been a challenging season, and she praised some of her fellow young teammates and their development throughout the year.

“I think this year a lot of the young girls have definitely stood up,” Roberts said.

“Charlie Thomas has had a great year, Lauren Wakfer has come in and really cemented her role in the ruck, there’s definitely a lot of positives.

“Personally, I’m pretty happy with my season but definitely think I can go harder again next year.”