West Coast caretaker coach Jarrad Schofield has lamented the lack of accountability from players to execute their role as the Eagles were brought to earth in a 65-point thumping by Carlton.
The Eagles had impressed under Schofield with competitive performances against Brisbane and Fremantle before claiming consecutive wins over Gold Coast and North Melbourne.
It gave supporters hope that they’d turned a corner, but they were outdone by an injury-hit Blues outfit playing to keep their finals hopes alive.
Schofield was quizzed about whether there was a hard tag on Carlton skipper Patrick Cripps, who ran riot in a best-on-field performance.
But he said there were several roles that were not implemented which let the side down in the defeat.
“We gave tasks to individuals, and they didn’t follow. And when you give a task to someone, and they don’t execute their role, well then, you’re searching for other players to step up into that space that really shouldn’t have had to,” Schofield said.
“That’s the accountability for that individual to make sure they get it done, but he (Cripps) was enormous. By half-time, he had 21 possessions, and he was well on his way.
“Luckily, we sort of curtailed his influence a little bit, but then the dam wall breaks and when you’ve got too many numbers that you’re dealing with in and around the football, and it’s left to too few again, it’s hard work.
“Even though they’re in the modern game, there’s still some old task football, a method you go to, and that’s just being accountable to a player.
“At the end of the day, certain individuals need to take ownership of messaging and performances from that game.”
Schofield hinted that there would be several changes made at the selection table ahead of their clash against Geelong at GMHBA Stadium off a six-day break.
“We’re not here to hand out games … but there’s some guys that we want to look at,” Schofield said.
“Clay Hall misses out today, but we will look to bring him back into the team, give him another go at it.
“We want to make sure that our players finish off strongly, and our young fellas that have been exposed over the last six to eight weeks, we want to make sure we give them another opportunity to keep growing because they’re going to be better for it going into pre-season.”
Schofield said the disappointment of the loss was compounded by the fact it was Andrew Gaff’s final game and forward Jamie Cripp’s 250th.
“We’re really disappointed that we didn’t really turn up on a big day for the football club,” he said.
“The disappointment’s there as you can tell, from everyone, we’re not shying away from that but it just shows that this game is brutal and we’ve show all year and I’ve said it before that our best is good enough.
“And then when you’re off, and you’re not committed to it, through choices that you make, whether it’s through work rate and being clean around the contest, if you collectively don’t have the numbers to get it done, you get exposed.
“It just shows that we have a lot of work to do as a football club, and we have one week to go in this season, and then we have a big pre-season ahead of us.”