The West Coast Eagles are ready to bounce back after falling to Brisbane by 45 points last week at Mineral Resources Park.
Looking ahead to Sunday’s clash with the Giants, senior coach Daisy Pearce said the team took a lot away from the loss to Brisbane, and have been working hard to find a response.
“It’s another really good opportunity to keep developing, Brisbane exposed a few things in our game that we need to keep working on,” Pearce said.
“The Giants will try and shift the ball, possess the ball and take the ball off the line like the Lions were able to do, and go around us.
“We’ve done a lot of work this week on making sure that we maintain our shape around the ground so that teams can’t do that.
“It’s awesome that we get another opportunity to practice it against a side that will try and do a similar thing.”
The Eagles have suffered a number of injuries in the past two weeks, key players such as Jess Hosking (quad), Amy Franklin (finger) and Jaide Britton (concussion) all spending time on the sidelines.
“It’s a challenge, but it’s an opportunity too because we’re getting to see our entire list in different roles,” Pearce said.
“So that exposure to a deep number in our list is a positive.
“Would we like full availability? Of course, but it’s just part of the nature of the game.
“Some of the injuries we’ve got have been disappointing because they’re just impact injuries, a couple of fractured and concussions, not ideal but there’s no real pattern to the ones we’re getting.
“We’ve just got to keep trying to develop the players we’ve got out there and have full confidence that the side we will name will be a really competitive team that can go after the Giants.”
Former Giant-turned Eagles inaugural skipper Emma Swanson said GWS star midfielders Rebecca Beeson and Alyce Parker will be two players to keep an eye on in Sunday’s matchup.
“They’re both key ball winners in their midfield, which will be a massive test,” Swanson said.
“Parker had a pretty quiet game last week, I know her pretty well and she tries not to have two quiet ones in a row, so she’s definitely going to be someone we will have to watch.
“Across the whole ground, if we just bring our pressure, as Daisy said, they play a little bit like Brisbane and we’ve been able to take some real key learnings from Sunday’s game, so hopefully we can put them into practice on the weekend.”
Rising Eagles’ star Ella Roberts has had an outstanding start to the 2024 season, the teenager constantly leaving teammates, coaches and fans in awe of her talent on the footy field.
“It’s awesome, I think we all say it, but sometimes we kind of sit back and watch her do something, thinking, you didn’t know people could do that,” Swanson said.
“Ella brings a lot of talent and energy to the group and the best thing about her at her age and where we’re at with our team is we just ask her to go out and play footy and that’s what she’s doing really, really well.
“She’s developing a real key hunger to get better and improve every week and this year in particular, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve just seen her game get better and better.
“She’s really implementing stuff that she’s learning and coming out and training it as well, so her development has been huge in the last few weeks, and I love playing with her.”
