West Coast “got a little bit better” in their 26-point loss to Sydney, but coach Adam Simpson called it only a small win as they remain without a victory in the opening four games for the second time in club history.
The Eagles threatened to cause a boilover in Mt Barker when they unexpectedly led the Swans on the back of a blistering second-quarter performance.
It wasn’t meant to be though as Sydney overpowered the rebuilding West Coast to record a 15.14 (104) to 11.12 (78) win on Saturday morning.
Simpson said he’d been proud of the players all season despite losing the first three games by an average of 64 points.
“I know that catastrophising things every second week is going to happen, it’s just our industry, but we’re getting better at some of the things we’re trying to get better at,” Simpson said.
“We’re not looking great sometimes on tellie but that’s OK and the criticism is fine, but we’re on a journey and win, lose or draw we keep trying to get better, and I thought today we got a little bit better.”
Simpson said the identity they’d been chasing in their rebuild was starting to peek through after kicking only three goals against the Western Bulldogs six days earlier.
“We’ve been not underperforming, but some of our game in the first three rounds we could’ve done better, so we still chase the same things, but we got a bit more reward today,” he said.
“Our pressure is something we’ve tried hard to do over the course of the pre-season and that allowed us to bring a bit more heat in our team defence and where the competition is at the moment you’ve got to be good at the contest, pressure.
“We didn’t talk about our scoring because that’s the by-product of other parts of your game.
“I’m pleased we won the ground balls, inside 50s again we had 53. What’s been strong is our clearances … we got beaten and in the end, you’ve got to be good at everything to win.
“We’re up for the fight, the guys I don’t think are high fiving in there but we can start to see a tiny bit of our identity and get a bit of reward for the work we’re putting in.”
The loss was compounded by a hamstring injury to Luke Edwards before half-time, while forward Ryan Maric was hospitalised with broken ribs and a punctured lung after a contest in the third term.
Veteran Andrew Gaff was once again the best for the Eagles’ WAFL side with 25 disposals, while premiership hero Dom Sheed got through his first game of the season back from injury finishing with 15 touches.
Simpson said the Eagles would take their time with Sheed, returning through the reserves given their good availability.
“We need to take our time a little bit, but we want our best side available,” he said.
“The guys who came back through WAFL, traditionally we’d try to get some form. We might have some players in our side who might have to go back and get some form which is normal footy, we haven’t been dealing with it for a few years with availability.
“Dom will want to come back into our side when he’s feeling good about his football not just when he’s available.”