Inconsistent is about the only way to sum up West Coast’s 2017 to date.
One of the more fancied teams pre-season, Adam Simpson’s team went to the bye just inside the top-eight with a record of 6-5 and a percentage of 101%.
Respectable home wins against both of last year’s Grand Finalists and St Kilda have been sullied again by the Eagles’ inability to travel, particularly to Melbourne.
Their four trips to Melbourne have included two beltings at the hands of Essendon and lowly Hawthorn. Their only win on the Eastern seaboard this season was in Round 1 against a North Melbourne side with a ton of debutants.
Nic Naitanui’s absence for the season has obviously hurt immensely, but injuries to Scott Lycett and veteran recruit Drew Petrie has left journeymen duo Jonathan Giles and Nathan Vardy sharing the #1 ruck role – worst case scenario for a team with deep ruck stocks.
Other key players have struggled for consistency including veteran forward Mark LeCras, the ever-frustrating Jack Darling and even Matt Priddis. Once he has recovered from his calf injury, the pressure will really be on Josh Kennedy to continue his great season and anchor a forward line that has only broken 100 points once in the last nine weeks.
On the other side of the ledger, Elliot Yeo has been an absolute revelation this season. He, Jeremy McGovern and Tom Barrass have formed a formidable wall across half-back which has been pivotal to keeping the Eagles’ in finals calculations.
Andrew Gaff and Luke Shuey continue to be underrated, particularly outside of Perth, and Sam Mitchell is without question the best player traded for pick 88 – even if it’s only for a couple of years.
With seven games at Domain Stadium, West Coast will probably make finals but it is doubtful that they will have any real impact based on what they’ve showed in 2017.
This is a completely different side with Nic Naitanui in it, so we might not see what this Eagles team is truly made of until next year.
D+
