The West Coast Eagles faced a crushing defeat against the Western Bulldogs, losing by a staggering 94 points at Marvel Stadium on Sunday. The final score of 19.12 (126) to 4.8 (32) marked a new low for the Eagles, who have now recorded 21 losses this season. This defeat also highlights a troubling trend, as it represents their 32nd loss by ten goals or more in their last 90 games since the start of the 2022 season.
In the aftermath of the game, Eagles coach Andrew McQualter emphasized a pivotal choice for his players: to learn from their experiences or to give up. He pointed to the ladder-leading Adelaide Crows as an example of how a team can rise from difficult circumstances to become championship contenders.
“You look back at teams over a long period of time and teams that have had seasons like this. And the Crows are a good example,” McQualter noted. “They had a couple more wins than we’ve had but they’ve had the smashings we’ve had. It goes two ways. There’s too many and it becomes overwhelming, and you can’t handle it, or you build resilience.”
McQualter stressed the importance of learning from their struggles to foster a winning mentality. “We need to spend the summer leaning into ways, competing and learning to win,” he explained. “We’re going to build competition into everything and we’re going to start to learn how to win again because it’s lost at our football club at the moment, and we’ve got to get the feeling back.”
The Eagles’ crushing loss comes just a week after their commendable performance against the Adelaide Crows, where they narrowly lost by nine points. Bridging the gap between their best and worst performances has become the team’s “biggest challenge,” according to McQualter.
“The biggest punish we had today was on the scoreboard all day. We just couldn’t quite stop any of their scoring and we clearly couldn’t score – pretty big parts of footy,” he acknowledged. “You look at the game and our pressure rating, which we chased today, was actually a decent number, quite high.”
Despite the high pressure rating, the Bulldogs proved to be a formidable opponent, skillfully transitioning from defense to attack and exploiting the Eagles’ weaknesses. “They were just so good at getting out, and once they got out of that first phase of defence, they just punished us,” McQualter said.
Reflecting on the game, he recognized the challenges that lie ahead for the Eagles. “We know the problems we’ve got, and we know the challenges we’ve got, and we know the work we’ve got to do. It’s going to take some time, but we’re going to work,” he stated.
As the Eagles look to rebound from this heavy defeat, the focus will be on cultivating resilience and a winning mindset in preparation for the upcoming season.
