Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
West Coast coach Andrew McQualter has promised Eagles fans the wins will eventually come, saying a strong foundation is being built to target premierships down the track.
The Eagles slumped to their eighth loss on the trot last week when their horror goalkicking return of 9.19 led to an 11-point defeat to lowly Richmond at the MCG.
It left West Coast nursing a 4-16 record and a percentage of 70.8 heading into Sunday’s clash with injury-hit Collingwood at Optus Stadium.
Although those aren’t pretty numbers, it’s a vast improvement on last year’s wooden spoon campaign, when the Eagles went 1-22 and finished with a percentage of 60.1.
McQualter is well aware Eagles fans are getting restless, but he wants to reassure them things are headed in the right direction.
“In terms of a metric, I can give you one straight away. We had the most inside 50s against us last year,” McQualter said.
“This year, we’ve had the fifth least. That’s a significant improvement, and for most teams you’re going to win a lot of games.
“At the moment though we can’t defend our D50 well enough, so that’s something we’re working on because they’re scoring a bit too efficiently.
“But I think the fact that we’ve improved our defensive profile, it will hold us in good stead.”
West Coast now boast some of the most talented and exciting young talent in the league.
No.1 draft picks Willem Duursma and Harley Reid have a special bond, spearhead Jobe Shanahan looks like a future superstar, Reuben Ginbey is already one of the league’s best key backs, while there are also high hopes for the likes of Archer Reid, Josh Lindsay, Bo Allan, Cooper Duff-Tytler and Elijah Hewett among others.
“We’re trying to build a team that wins premierships. We’re not looking for short-term fixes to win games today,” McQualter said.
“We’re trying to build a profile, a squad, a team playing the right way that wins premierships.
“So it’ll turn. We’re really confident it will in terms of the win category.
“But right now we’ve got to keep putting in the building blocks to set this team up for a long time.”
Collingwood (11-8-1) will guarantee they finish no lower than 10th if they can beat the Eagles.
But their victory hopes took a huge dive this week when Scott Pendlebury (corked calf), Jordan De Goey (glute), Jeremy Howe (fractured arm), Harry Perryman (hamstring) and Patrick Lipinski (calf) were all ruled out of the match.
