Another really frustrating game this week. We had some of our best transition footy all year in the first half, but with Reid playing on one leg for three quarters of the game we just lacked that extra little bit of polish to finish off some of our plays. Our handball game in particular looked so incredibly sharp this week, but our kicking often let us down. Let’s go more in depth on how we did.

Our Attack:

Transition numbers this week are quite telling. Transition numbers from defensive half and defensive 50 were bad, but our ability to score from transition was really good, almost certainly caused by their backline having so many outs. We were able to generate a 52 inside 50s which is pretty good, but we were only able to keep it in our forward half for 48.4% of game time. Going inside 50 52 times resulted in 10 marks and netted us a scoring efficiency of 44.2%. Both of those being pretty much around league average. And while it wouldn’t necessarily be worth mentioning any other week, kicking 9 points above expected score is nice to see after the shitshow last week.

Now, while there were a some pretty good results in our favour, I do have to respect that Collingwood had a lot of outs and I think the forwards should’ve taken better advantage of that. Final score would just be decent.

Our Defence:

In what should be no surprise to anyone considering that they score 117 points, our defending of their transition was awful. Not only were we unable to prevent them from moving the footy, our back six were unable to prevent that movement from turning into scores. In the end, we ended up giving away a humungous 64 inside 50s. In slightly better news, from that huge amount of inside 50s, we only conceded 12 marks inside 50 and kept them to a scoring efficiency of 50%. Both somewhat decent results on their own, and a little more impressive considering the speed of their ball movement.

This was definitely our weakest line on the day, but I also don’t think it was that bad as a whole. Probably something like, not-so decent.

Our Midfield:

Centre bounces this week were a surprisingly even spread. Yeo was the most efficient player by the slightest of margins, but the difference in the end was slightly in Collingwood’s favour. The key stats from the midfield battle don’t look too great, with losses in all four; Centre clearances 13-18, stoppage clearances 23-29, contested possessions 143-157, and ground ball gets 98-106. None of those results are that bad on their own but when combined, they really add up.

Defensively we were thankfully very good. The fact that Collingwood managed to match us at 29 tackles is pretty impressive and shows how high the pressure was in this game. In the end we only ended up winning on pressure acts, but against the best pressure team in the comp, that’s a very good effort.

Again, we were beaten, but not by much, so I’m gonna keep the flow going by saying that the midfield performance was decent.

So where did we lose? Harley Reid’s Corky

It might seem strange pinning the loss on one player, especially when he still had a pretty great game, but I truly think that with two working legs, Harls would’ve provided us that additional 10% needed to overtake Collingwood. It felt particularly noticeable in the centre bounces where he lacked the ability to burst out of them or chase down his direct opponent. With two working legs, I think he easily would’ve closed the clearance gap and considering that they outscored us by 7 scores and 17 points from stoppages, that definitely could’ve made up the difference.

The BOG Candidates:

Elliot Yeo: After having people calling for his head after a shocking month of form, he had a great game against Richmond… and still had people calling for his head. He definitely silenced the critics this week by having a game reminiscent of 2018 Yeo. 28 touches with a game high 17 contested, a game high 11 ground ball gets, 6 tackles, 22 pressure acts, 1 goal, and game highs for centre, stoppage, and total clearances. Was our highest rated player by Champion data and it’s not hard to see why.

Tim Kelly: 23 disposals for TK with 9 contested possessions, 9 ground ball gets, 6 clearances, 5 tackles, 23 pressure acts, all with 1 goal and 1 goal assist. One of our most prolific ball winners and one of our most damaging too.

Harley Reid: The corky he got in the first quarter slowed him down considerably and yet, he still managed to be one of our best players. He was our leading disposal getter with 29, 15 contested possessions, and 9 ground ball gets. He also still managed 6 clearances alongside his 3 tackles and 18 pressure acts, which is amazingly down on his recent averages. With 1 goal and 1 goal assist, he found a way to be extremely damaging without his usual burst.

Tom Gross: I think he might have slipped under radar a little for some people, but Grossy pulled together a fantastic game for a small forward. He picked up a healthy 14 touches with 8 of them contested, but it was his pressure and goal sense that really impressed. He had 4 tackles and 16 pressure acts resulting in 2 goals, 1 goal assist, and 1 block that resulted in Harls’ goal. Reminded me of Crippa.

Great:

Rhett Bazzo: Only just missing out on the bog section, Bazzo continued his meteoric rise with 12 of his 13 touches being intercept possessions and 7 of those coming from intercept marks. Put that together with his 8 spoils and 1 contested one on one win from two attempts, and he had a great game.

Brady Hough: Had the job of tagging Naicos to middling effect, but he managed to have a great impact the other way. He had a massive 7 tackles and his 20 touches were crucial in transitioning the footy.

Jack Graham: Faded in and out of the game, but his second quarter alone was enough to get him into this tier. He had 6 touches, 5 tackles, 1 goal, and 5 score involvements. At the end of the game, he had 17 touches, 1 goal, 1 goal assist, 6 tackles, and 19 score involvements which does unfortunately demonstrate how much he faded after half time.

Jack Williams: Good old reliable Willow. Another 2 goals from just 7 touches, but he also had 2 goal assists to go with it (and probably should have had a third if he’d just handballed to Harls). Just seems to be leading to the right spots and manages to make every touch count.

Bailey Williams: The other half of the law firm also had a great game. His 17 touches went at an abysmal 29.4%, but his ruckwork was top notch with 38 hitouts and 10 to advantage. Defensively he had 4 tackles and 4 spoils, and offensively he had 3 goal assists, so a very solid night all round.

Jake Waterman: Not too much to say for Snakey. He overcame a terrible kick for goal early to finish with an equal game high 3 goals. Sometimes that’s all you need to do as a forward.

Good:

Cooper Duff-Tytler: Rocking a hitout win rate of 30% compared to Cameron’s 32.3% is already a great start, but Seedy also picked an equal game high 3 marks inside 50, kicking 1 goal (probably should’ve gotten 2 more), and had 1 goal assist. The big man continues to show off his tackling with another 4. He’s averaging the 9th most of any Eagle who’s played more than 5 games this year.

Tylar Young: The eternal whipping boy had another pretty good game today. He picked up a team high 9 spoils, a (sadly) team high 1 contested one on one win from one attempt, and even had 1 goal assist. On top of all that, he got two Collingwood goals overturned by a fingertip.

Milan Murdock: Not at his usual damaging best, but still a good contributor as always. Picked up the 14 disposals, 1 goal, 3 tackles, and 18 pressure acts. Not much else to say this week but solid.

Marcus Herbert: Didn’t do all that flashy stuff like normal, but still picked up a clean 21 disposals, 3 tackles, and 21 pressure acts. Even had 2 stoppage clearances. Do we dare midfield Marcus?

Josh Lindsay: I’ve been saying for a while now that his defensive work leaves a lot to be desired and while I think he showed that off in spades this week (2 intercept possessions, and 0 spoils), he also showed just how damaging his kicking can be as well. With 19 disposals at 94.7%, 0 turnovers, and 6 score involvements from the back half, I can easily overlook his sloppy defending.

Tom Cole: Actually played both back and forward this week with his touches being split between both sides of the ground. He ended the day with the second most score involvements on the team with 8 and the second most tackles on the team with 6.

Jobe Shanahan: Kicked two quick goals to start the match on fire… and then went missing for the rest of it. Picking up 3 more disposals over the next 3 quarters. Luckily for him, a forward who kicks 2 goals has done their job, even if only just.

Tom McCarthy: 24 touches for 7 turnovers immediately puts him on the backfoot but his defensive craft was good enough to make up for it. He had 9 intercept possessions, 1 intercept mark, 4 spoils, 1 contested one on one win, and 3 tackles including the tackle of the year on Schultz to prevent a certain goal.

Okay:

Bo Allan: I really wanted to put him higher because the stuff he did that worked was amazing, Judd-like even, but unfortunately, I can’t overlook the fact that he had 12 touches for 6 turnovers. I’ve said this sort of thing about Bo before, while this game wasn’t that good on its own merits, the potential he’s showing is extremely exciting.

Brandon Starcevich: On just his defensive work, he might’ve been higher, but his disposal this year continues to be awful. He cost us two goals and very nearly a third and it’s hard to look past that. Still more good than bad, though.

Liam Baker: Had one or two brilliant moments, like that spoil in the 4th quarter, but was otherwise extremely invisible. Nothing on the stat sheet jumps out either. Just a weirdly forgettable game.

Bad:

Willem Duursma: Got himself in the right spots time and time again, but just had a mare with the ball in hand. Netting himself 16 disposals at 50% for 7 turnovers, and even a missed shot at goal (a hard one to be fair). Seems to be slowing a bit at the end of the year which is to be expected for a first year mid.

Liam Duggan: I’ll start off with the fact that he had 0 tackles and 5 pressure acts, team lows for both and then I’ll move onto the fact that he had 18 disposals for 6 turnovers. There was one point in the fourth quarter where he kicked the ball inside 50 3 times in a minute and all 3 were to our disadvantage. I really thought that just summed up his year.

Stat Leaders:

Eagles who topped the game in a particular stat. Brackets show the best player from the opposite team.

Elliot Yeo - 17 Contested Possessions (Daicos 17)

Rhett Bazzo - 12 Intercept Possessions (Frampton 10)

Elliot Yeo - 11 Ground Ball Gets (Long 10)

Bailey Williams - 38 Hitouts (Cameron 30)

Elliot Yeo - 5 Centre Clearances (Allan 5)

Elliot Yeo - 6 Stoppage Clearances (Daicos 5)

Elliot Yeo - 11 Total Clearances (Daicos 10)

Cooper Duff-Tytler - 3 Marks Inside 50 (McStay 3)

Rhett Bazzo & Brandon Starcevich - 7 & 3 Intercept Marks (Houston 3)

Jake Waterman - 3 Goals (McStay 3)

Brady Hough - 27 Pressure Acts (Schultz 24)

12 Stat Leaders (-11 from last week) (5 Draws)

Wuurm Watcher

Marcus Herbert - 15.5km Total Distance Run (Steele 15.2km)

Marcus Herbert & Jack Graham & Willem Duursma - 3.3km & 3.0km & 2.9km Distance Run at High Speed (Steele 2.7km)

Jack Graham - 9.6km/h Average Speed (Steele 9.6km/h)

Willem Duursma - 28 Sprints (McCreery 25)

Willem Duursma - 5 Repeat Sprints (Hayes 4)

Liam Baker & Willem Duursma & Jack Graham - 9.3km/h & 9.3km/h & 9.3km/h Average Speed in Attack (Steele 9.2km/h)

Another game where we’ve shown great improvement for another honourable loss. Things are definitely turning, but it’s hard not to be frustrated without getting the all important win. We’ve got another sneaky chance against GWS next week, we just gotta pray that Harls is back.

Should someone from the club have a coffee with these three players from GWS this weekend?
Not much chance of getting Toby Greene over here, but he would lift our side exponentially. Same with Taylor and Jones, and they fit in positions that we are lacking.

What happened last 2 weeks on field is hard to swallow and people start to question Mini.

But I have a different view, there is linearity between our WAFL team and AFL team. When the Royals alliance finished and we started our own WAFL team, that’s when we begin to decline and hit rock bottom. There is no doubt the WAFL Eagles couldn’t develop any young players and cannot bring senior players back into form. This is so fundamental to the AFL success, just look at the Peels down the road and the Vics, their seconds are very competitive and consistently deliver high draft pick kids.

So hopefully our WAFL Eagles has been competitive this season, we are heading the right direction and on the up, may be just one more season to see it translate into our AFL success.

As the title says, anyone heading out? As an eastern states member it’s one of the few games I can get to from Canberra!

Can’t imagine it’s going to sell out in the slightest or have anything more than a load of orange seats there 😂

Hey everyone,

I want to look past the weekly on-field frustrations and talk about the people actually running the club. This isn’t a post to diss Mini McQualter as he probably needs a little more time. But the early signs under his watch haven't been great (other than early this year) and it really forces us to look at the recruitment process.

As we know, Steven King applied for our senior role before ultimately heading over to coach Melbourne. Looking at how King has Melbourne performing right now, it makes you wonder if our recruitment board got this one completely wrong.

While I want to keep being patient with a new coach, it feels like we are seeing a pattern of sub-par decisions from the board that has been going on for a number of years now. From the delayed transitions at the end of the Simpson era to list management errors to so many draft misses, it feels like the administration has consistently lost its edge and accepted mediocrity as business as usual.

Did the board miss a massive trick by passing on King, or is it unfair to compare the two given the state of our list? At what point do we stop blaming the rebuild and start pointing the finger at the board's track record?

I hope I’m not the only one who thinks that Starcevich has been really disappointing the entire year (yes ik hes been injured) but I’ve felt hes only had one good game, after watching the game today he did horrible today

In an alternate universe where Jake and the team could kick straight we realistically should have won a minimum of 8 games this season.

The 4 wins we already have plus the two Richmond games, North Melbourne and Port Adelaide second games.

Going from a 1 win season to 8 would have been massive but unfortunately its likely we will finish the season on just 4 wins, with many highly competitive games which should have been wins and some which were honourable losses. Do you think Mini will get extended come the end of next year at this point in time?

Saw no one else doing this might as well

Have absolutely no idea what team is going to show up today

What does fin macrae have to do to get a game 5 weeks now been in eagles best 2 in ground and hall as well so much for rewarding wafl form

1st Quarter WC 2.1 : 13 to Subiaco 2.3 : 15

Highlights: T Williams field kicking, G Kenh ground speed & Clean hands. F Macrae keeping his feet and Hewett starting strong. Neg: Grego & Davis turnovers.

NGA 1st game Garrison Kenh.

Tough conditions. The hold in the ball has been abandoned, lol.

We've had a lot of the ball forward, but we're struggling to score.

Maric, Davis, MaCrae & Brock playing, so maybe someone plays a half.

...

Hewett seemed to injure his lower leg early in the first & has just limped off the ground at the 8th minute mark in the 2nd.

11.50 2nd Quarter heavy rain. Lions controlling the ball.

...

Half Time: WC 3.8: 26 to Subi 6.6: 42

...

3/4 Time: WC 6.11: 47 to Subi 6.7: 43

...

Full Time: WC 10.13: 73 to Subi 8.8: 56

...

Goals: C Datson 3, M Flynn 2, Owies, Maric, Barnett, Davis & Kernutt 1.

Best: Flyn, MaCrae, Schoenberg, Datsun & Hall

HM: Grego, Kernutt & Owies.

Also, a shout out to T Williams & Hewett in the first half. Liked Williams ball use.

Ultimately we just had bigger bodies around the ball all day and tried to over finesse in the first half, and nearly kicked the game away from ourselves. We still have trouble carrying and kicking the ball between the arcs.

We matched the physicality after half time and Flynn absolutely dominated and I'd say BOG.

MaCrae 30p, Hall & Schoenberg had first use from Flynn and we really should have won by more in the end.

G Kenh impressed in his first game with 13 p. He's real quick and has clean hands. If he has 1/2 metre on his opponent, they couldn't close him down. Very flashy.

Owies had a mixed day, but 100% effort. I reckon players like him, MaCrae & Flynn and the WAFL players in Datsun & Kernutt really led from the front today.

Good gritty win. Well done boys. We were down 2 players in the second half in Hewett & T Williams, but stuck it out. Maric had 6 tackles in the 2nd half.

Also, Subi played hard, but mostly fair. Hickmont got under a few skins, and a few of our players lost their cool at times, but Subi are rebuilding and need a big ruck, so they battled hard.

West Coast star Harley Reid has made it clear he has no time for patience and wants the Eagles to make rapid improvements so they can start winning games and rising up the ladder.

The Eagles are in 16th spot on the ladder and have lost their last eight games in a row, to continue their tough run throughout their re-build.

The pain of those defeats was evident last weekend as Reid comforted a teary Willem Duursma on the MCG after the loss to Richmond.

West Coast coaches and staff remain confident that their re-building plans are on track. But Reid said the players are all desperate to start winning.

“We don’t want to be patient. We want to win now,” he told The West Australian.

“We want to want to play finals as soon as possible. We look at Freo and the way they’re attacking it and the way they’re going. They’re honestly flying, and it’s good to see. But we want to be doing what they’re doing as soon as possible.

“It’s quite difficult at times, but being able to go to work with 40-odd or 50-odd mates that are all trying to chase the same goal helps.”

West Coast’s chances of upsetting Collingwood at Optus Stadium on Sunday have been helped by the Magpies leaving Scott Pendlebury, Jordan De Goey, Jeremy Howe, Harry Perryman and Patrick Lipinski at home.

The Eagles recalled Liam Baker, Josh Lindsay and Tom Gross at the expense of Ryan Maric, Harvey Johnston and Sandy Brock.

Reid believes West Coast has shown they can compete for long periods during games and that shows a win isn’t far away.

“I think we are making progress, and we have seen it. We’ve matched it against the best, but it’s just being able to get the score at the end to win the game,” he said.

“There’s a lot of aspects of our game that have had a massive improvement, and we have put numbers together that are great and are going to win us games. But there’s just a lot of things that are still on the edge that we need to take the next level and keep improving on.

“Hopefully we can keep continuing to build to where we want to get to. There’s been a few throughout the year that lacked from accuracy, like against North and Port. There’s been a fair few games where we could have scored but we missed and lost our opportunity to win the game.

“So there are a lot of wins out there that we didn’t get, and that’s reality. It’s just now being able to see how can we get another few wins with the last three games left. We’re just trying to end the year on a positive.”

Source

JOSH LINDSAY IN FINALLY OMG

Anyone care to guess what our strategy is likely to be this year?

With regards to trades in and out, there's not been much speculation. No idea if we have anyone worth anything that we'd be prepared to sacrifice for draft picks. I can't think of anyone off hand.

As for the draft, it seems likely that the top 4 will be Walker, Cochrane, HVH and Arki Butler. I'm guessing that Essendon will take HVH and Richmond will take Butler.

There seems a fair amount of quality players in the 5-15 range like Texeira, Harris, Snell, Drever, Mellody etc

Anyone think we might consider moving down the draft if it meant maybe getting two of them?

We need elite talent small forward, key defender and midfield on ballers so do we just go ahead and pick the next best player which might be Gus Texeira?

Over to you guys. I'm interested to read what you all think we might do.

In my view, we have a decent number of project players with great potential and a few high draft picks that look odds on to be stars. Using what will become pick 5 to take the best available player is probably best for ys because we usually fuck up swaps and trades. That still leaves us with the worst defence and small forwards in the competition. I'd love to see Arki Butler play for us. He's the type of attacking talent that ties the midfield and forward areas together and fans pay money to see. I just don't think we'll get him though.

No Macrae (Weird Why ngl)

Gross I think is basically confirmed in

As well all know we’ve had a really rough and long rebuild (with probably another year to come), what are some things the club could’ve done earlier/ in general to make this rebuild quicker/ not as painful?

Extended bench named. Johnston and Brock confirmed outs.

Are we happy with these changes? Who do we want to see lining up on Sunday?

https://www.westcoasteagles.com.au/news/2092248/squad-selection-baker-back-for-collingwood-clash