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Find your frequency hereDuffield: Bunbury a Roos success; Eagles cost themselves a win
Mark Duffield • June 9th, 2025 3:15 pm
So West Coast managed 63 to 41 inside attacking fifties against North Melbourne at Hands Oval in Bunbury yesterday.
They out-tackled the Kangaroos 81-69, they applied extreme pressure for three quarters - and still managed to lose by 10 points.
There was more than a little for the Eagles to take out of the game. They wanted to improve their pressure – they wanted to improve their tackling and they did.
Now it is a matter of improving their kicking for goal because that is what cost them this game. They booted 6.16 for the game, they were 1.8 at half-time and while they did get 18 points clear at one point in the final term – when they ran out of puff in the last 10 minutes they weren’t far enough in front.
Just a couple of positives to come out of the game – Harry Edwards continues to emerge as a young power defender.
He did a great job on Nick Larkey yesterday – the big Roo forward kept goalless and held to 11 disposals while Edwards took five marks, had 13 intercept possessions, had 12 disposals and gained almost 300 metres in territory for his team.
Edwards is 24 now. He has come through the system at West Coast in extremely tough circumstances – behind Jeremy McGovern and Tom Barrass in the defensive pecking order and often playing where quality support around him was absent and the ball was ever present deep in the Eagles’ defence.
He has shown marked improvement over the past month after being dropped a couple of times earlier in the season. He is closing in on the 50-game milestone now and this was one of his very best games.
Another youngster continuing to emerge in a very tough season is Elijah Hewett. He copped a knock to his leg when a kick got smothered and was sore for half a game but he kicked the Eagles' first goal after everyone else had missed. He finished with 22 disposals and six clearances.
And we need to make special mention of the two blokes the Eagles brought to the club – Jack Graham and Liam Baker.
Graham came as a free agent so didn’t cost the Eagles anything but he has given them great midfield grunt. Baker would be leading the club’s best and fairest at this time and he was superb again. He has played under pressure because the third pick in the draft was spent and split to get him here but that is hardly his fault.
He had 20 disposals, he had seven score involvements and he had 11 intercept possessions in defence.
The loss is going to make it hard for the Eagles to avoid another wooden spoon but it will help North justify their decision to come to WA taking critical state government money for the extra games here.
Hands Oval put its best foot forward yesterday. The ground was packed with 14,000, the weather perfect and the surface pristine and certainly the conditions weren’t the reason the first half was such a scrappy affair.
WA’s South West did its AFL credentials no harm at all yesterday.
