How West Coast responds to two disappointing losses is all that counts for the Eagles as they prepare for Monday’s home clash against North Melbourne, coach Adam Simpson says. 

After returning to the nest at Mineral Resources Park on Thursday morning for main training, the players and coaches have turned their attention to facing the much-improved Kangaroos at Optus Stadium.

Speaking via Zoom during his weekly media conference, the senior coach’s message was clear – the club is united and actions will speak louder than words.

“(The players are) just like the coaches and myself - we all feel responsible,” Simpson said.

“’We own it’ is the direction going forward. That’s as simple as it can be, so talk doesn’t really count in these situations.

“You need to go out and perform and do it through your actions.

“Judge us on Monday night and hopefully we’re a bit better than we were on the weekend.”

An advantage of spending two days in Melbourne following the Swans defeat was that the coaches and players were able to immediately start drilling down into what has been going wrong in recent weeks.

“I think the message is we’re all in this together,” Simpson said.

“It’s all of us. We need to back our players in, we need to be resilient and we need to be tough and hard when we play.

“We’re all in it together, that’s the message – the whole club. We’re not here to point fingers or blame people.”

Simpson said workrate and effort were the starting points for the team to get back to playing the type of football that is capable of challenging the competition’s better sides.

“It’s hard to execute style of play and how to defend opposition if we can’t bring that (effort). Our players are aware of that,” Simpson said.

“Trying to tap into why we were so poor for two weeks, I mean 10 days ago we were in a pretty good position (after beating Richmond).

“Working through the why is something we’re working on and continuing to work on our method.”

The Eagles are still right in the finals hunt, sitting seventh on the ladder with an 8-7 record, and prolific wingman Andrew Gaff should be back for Monday’s important match while star forward Liam Ryan will return from suspension.

West Coast will announce a 26-man squad on Thursday evening and is set to finalise its 22 on Saturday afternoon, with Simpson anticipating several forced changes, including losing Jack Redden (knee) and Jamaine Jones (ankle).

“Gaff had a bit of a sore thumb and he was touch-and-go, so hoping he’s available this week, he’ll train today I think so that will be important for us,” Simpson said.

“'Reddo' will miss a few weeks with a leg injury and Jamaine Jones will miss a few weeks with a syndesmosis (injury).

“We’ve got a couple of other guys there who are touch-and-go which we’ll work through today.

“We lost a couple of soldiers; it’s been part of our issue really, we get one or two back and we lose one or two.”