Down on confidence by their own admission, AFL premiers West Coast have opted against wholesale changes after a deplorable fortnight.
The Eagles were jumped by Port Adelaide on their home turf, then copped a 58-point flogging from Geelong at GMHBA Stadium last week.
Coach Adam Simpson was seen talking at length to Jack Darling during the week's training session after a lean spell for the premiership forward.
But Simpson ultimately resisted swinging the axe, making just one change for Saturday night's game against Gold Coast at Optus Stadium with midfielder Jack Redden returning from injury and young forward Jarrod Brander making way.
"We probably feel like it's been a bit of a collective performance the last couple of weeks," Simpson told the club's website.
"There's obviously some players who are down on confidence and down on form but we'll just go with the one change.
"We just want a response in the contest. We think we've been down in a lot of areas but the main one is we can't really do much if we don't get the ball in our hands."
Redden's inclusion should bolster an Eagles midfield that has been battered around the contests this season.
Simpson had his football apprenticeship at North Melbourne under take-no-prisoners coach Denis Pagan, who notoriously responded to a poor showing from his players by telling them to bring their mouthguards to training.
But any temptation to adopt his premiership mentor's approach was tempered by the lack of time to recover from the road trip to Geelong.
"It's a six-day break so as much as you want to get the mouthguards out like in the old days, we can't do that. The boys just can't recover," Simpson said.
"We've worked on a bit of technique stuff. We've got some work to do there."
Share
