A Six-Pack Of IPA (Interesting Points, Allegedly): West Coast Eagles’ five straight beltings an AFL rarity

Horrendous handful Five straight losses by 60 points or more puts the current West Coast outfit onto the ‘Mount Rushmore’ of least competitive five-game stretches by any club in the AFL era. Since 1990, there have only been three other instances of five consecutive defeats by 10 goals-plus. Fitzroy achieved the unwanted feat in 1995 before merging with Brisbane barely a year later, while GWS reeled off six such games in a row in their inaugural season of 2012. Gold Coast is the other case from 2016 – just weeks after making a surprise 3-0 start to the season. The Eagles have lost as many games by 60+ in the past five weeks as they did in the first eight seasons of Adam Simpson’s coaching tenure. Five straight losses of 60+ points in a season – AFL era Player drain Shannon Hurn’s exit through injury and Patrick Naish’s relegation to the substitute’s role against Melbourne meant that after just nine games, West Coast don’t have a single player to have been in the starting line-up for every match. Since the turn of the century, it’s the earliest point in a season where a club has been without a player with perfect attendance. The previous mark was set by Geelong in 2011 – their most recent premiership year – who had every player from their season opener sit out at least once by their 14th match. No bang for their buck If you had told Fremantle fans before their clash with Gold Coast that the Dockers would go on to have 29 more forward-50 entries than their opponents, they may have assumed a comfortable Freo victory was on the cards. Instead, that huge differential underlined the tale of wasted opportunity in a comprehensive loss. It was just the 10th time since 1999 that a team has won the inside-50 count by that volume but lost the match. Fremantle suffered season-low differentials for clearances, contested possession, points from turnover and score per inside-50 percentage. Bringing the grunt One of the few positives for Freo against the Suns was the engine-room hustle from Caleb Serong, who tied a Dockers benchmark with his defensive efforts. Serong laid 14 tackles to equal the club record for a game set by Michael Barlow (twice) and Chris Mayne. It marked the most tackles by any player league-wide this year. Griffin Logue’s 17 intercepts were also a club high across the past decade. Wish you were here For more than a decade, the ultra-durable Hurn, Andrew Gaff and Josh Kennedy have been mainstays of West Coast’s defence, midfield and forward line respectively. So when all three were unavailable for Sunday’s loss to Melbourne, it marked a rare sight. The game was the first time the Eagles have played without at least one of the trio since the last round of 2008, when Gaff was in Year 10 at high school. Caretaker’s welcome When Nathan Buckley called it quits last year, Fremantle was the first team to test out caretaker coach Robert Harvey – and proceeded to beat Collingwood. West Coast get their chance to greet a caretaker of their own after Leon Cameron’s exit, with Mark McVeigh to lead GWS on Sunday. It will be the fourth time the Eagles have faced a stand-in after a permanent coaching exit. West Coast were the first club to play a Scott Camporeale-led Adelaide after Phil Walsh’s death in 2015. The other two times both involved Terry Wallace: A 1996 win over the Bulldogs in Wallace’s first game after taking the reins from Alan Joyce, and a 2009 loss to Richmond and caretaker Jade Rawlings after Wallace’s departure.