West Coast’s players have drilled into the reasons for their collective dip in form and vice-captain Jeremy McGovern says belief among the group remains high as the Eagles bid to rediscover their best football.
While West Coast has been disappointing in recent weeks, the team still sits in seventh spot on the ladder and is in the hunt for a seventh-straight finals campaign.
But the immediate focus is on bouncing back from some poor displays against the Bulldogs and Sydney in a rare Monday night meeting with North Melbourne at Optus Stadium.
“The belief is still extremely high. We’re still seventh on the ladder, top eight, we’ve played some great footy, but we’ve played some terrible footy as well,” McGovern said.
“We need to bridge that gap as much as we can.
“I think everyone thinks our playing group is probably not living up to expectations at the moment but the belief is definitely still there for sure.”
McGovern accepted criticism and frustration from fans, and while there has been some challenging conversations this week he said educating and owning the performances were keys to turning things around.
“To an extent (there has been challenging conversations), we don’t really need to get the sledgehammer out and whack blokes, but we sit down and we educate, we talk about it,” McGovern said.
“We own up to it. That was probably the first thing, all the boys put their hands up who haven’t performed, and everyone did.
“There wasn’t one bloke in there who put their hand up and said ‘I’ve been 100 per cent all year’ really.
“We’ve all had our issues and times and moments, so we always put our hands up as a collective and we’ll own it.”
McGovern added the Eagles were under no illusions about North Melbourne’s capabilities, with David Noble’s bottom-placed side putting some impressive form together in the past month.
The Roos have beaten Gold Coast, drawn with eighth-placed Greater Western Sydney and pushed top-four teams the Western Bulldogs and Brisbane.
“The last four weeks have been extremely competitive, so we’ll have our hands full on the weekend for sure,” McGovern said.
“We’ll be expecting them obviously at their best, which we’ll have to be on our toes for.
“They’ve been great. We’ve looked into them a fair bit this week and the last four weeks have been right up there and really challenged some good sides.”
The Eagles are set to finalise their 22 at 2.30pm AWST on Saturday, but have already confirmed hard-running wingman Andrew Gaff (thumb) and star forward Liam Ryan (suspension) will return.
