West Coast coach Adam Simpson impressed with Eagles’ resilience, but say they left it to too few against Suns

West Coast coach Adam Simpson didn’t see too many of the “little wins” the rebuilding Eagles have been chasing, conceding they relied on too few in a 37-point loss to Gold Coast.

The Eagles were beaten up around the ball by a tough and dogged Suns, led by Matt Rowell, Noah Anderson and Jarrod Witts in a 17.10 (112) to 12.3 (75) defeat at People First Stadium on Sunday.

It consigned West Coast to a loss off the back of consecutive wins that had been the light at the end of a dark tunnel amid more than two year of pain.

Simpson said the Eagles had to be better in the contest after the effort against the Suns.

“We won the first quarter. We lost the last quarter on the last goal of the day, but the little wins we’re chasing, we probably didn’t get many of those,” Simpson said.

“I did see a bit of resilience in the group. We looked pretty fatigued halfway through the third (quarter) and tried to open it up a little bit in the last and we got a little bit of reward.

“We will look at this as a learning game. It won’t be ‘bring your mouthguards on Monday’, but we’ve got to get better at the contest part.”

West Coast are set to regain No.1 draftee Harley Reid as well as key defender Tom Barrass (suspension) and Noah Long (injury) for their home clash against Essendon on Saturday.

It puts selection pressure on the 23 that were beaten by the Suns.

Third-year midfielder Campbell Chesser was subbed out of the game for a second consecutive week after registering only six disposals, while recruit Tyler Brockman (four disposals) and Luke Edwards (nine) also struggled.

Simpson said he would not single out any player who would be under pressure to hold their spot.

“Take your pick really, there was a fair few guys who weren’t in the game,” Simpson said.

“There’s going to be that rhythm of up and down form when you’re a young player and sometimes they need to go back, sometimes we stick with them.

“Three players didn’t play that have been playing in Barrass, Harley and Noah. They’re all available this week, so that’s a good conversation we can have.

“We’ll keep it pretty steady and hit Essendon as hard as we can.”

Simpson said the Eagles would consider resting stars such as Tim Kelly and Elliot Yeo like they did with Reid as they look to get them through the season.

“We would have loved to have played Harley today, but we just couldn’t. His body was telling us he shouldn’t,” Simpson said.

“Yeoy will be the same at some stage, he may need a spell. Hopefully not too soon.

“Where we’re going, we can’t rely on Yeo, (Jake) Waterman, Harley and (Liam) Duggan. We need to try to get everyone to give a collective effort. They’re important players though, so we’ll keep an eye on them and see how we go.”