West Coast co-captain Liam Baker says he thought triple-figure beltings were behind Eagles

West Coast co-captain Liam Baker admits he thought the days of triple-figure beltings were behind them as the Eagles reel from their second thrashing in the space of a month. The WA club will head into their clash against the bottom-placed and winless Richmond as favourites, despite being touched up by St Kilda to the tune of 101 points at Marvel Stadium on Sunday. Should they beat the Tigers, they will have tripled their win tally from last year. But heavy defeats to Sydney and the Saints have exposed just how far last year’s wooden spooners still have in their lengthy rebuild. West Coast have the second-worst percentage in the AFL at 55.8 — only ahead of the Tigers at 54.2 — and they’ve conceded more points than any other team, averaging 120 points against. Asked if after early-season wins against North Melbourne and Port Adelaide had the group feeling like hammerings were a thing of the past, Baker said: “It did feel like that. It’s disappointing to go down the way we did.” However, Baker refused to buy into the thought that their two victories had led to complacency within the young group. “No way. Mini (Andrew McQualter) and the coaches, they reviewed those wins the same as they had reviewed all these losses,” he said. “There’s always going to be pluses and minuses out of those games. It’s been the same. I’m not sure what it is in the last month, we’re putting in the same amount of work we were in the pre-season. “We’re really dialling in trying to get better because we’re desperate to get better.” West Coast have persisted with playing several youngsters, leaving a lot on the shoulders of the leaders in Baker and fellow co-captain Liam Duggan. However, the 28-year-old said they couldn’t mollycoddle the young group when they dissected where they went wrong. “We’ll just do what we need to do every week, and that’s look at the game honestly, whether we win or lose or whatever happens,” Baker said. “We’ll always look at it honestly and see what we need to work on and go on after that. “If you just move on from that knowing that the score is the score but we’ve got things to work on, that’s the way we keep going forward.” Baker reiterated McQualter’s stance that their defence was not up to standard, as both lamented the Eagles’ inability to stop the Saints from taking 137 uncontested marks. “Defensively, we broke down in our intent and our system. We’ve given up too many marks in the last two weeks, which is disappointing, so we just need to keep on working on it during the week,” he said. “We’ve dropped off in that area against some pretty solid teams, but that doesn’t matter. We want to keep those numbers we’re going after defensively, and we’re not getting there. “It’s a shame that we started off relatively well in the season and we’ve dropped off a bit, but we know the big issues, and we’re working on it. But we need to keep on working on it.”