West Coast Eagles coach Andrew McQualter to back young guns despite inconsistency after GWS smashing

West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says he’s seeing enough from the Eagles’ next generation to give him faith that if they back the process, their fortunes will turn.

The Eagles’ focus on youth this season has been evident, with next generation academy rookie Malakai Champion their eighth debutant for 2025 when he ran out to take on Greater Western Sydney on Friday night.

It has left only three players on their list — Coen Livingstone, Jacob Newton and Lucca Grego — yet to get a taste of AFL action as first-year McQualter does a deep exploration of his list.

The inconsistency of youth was on display in the last week for the Eagles after they put up a competitive performance against ladder-leaders Collingwood in Melbourne before struggling to keep up with the Giants in a 59-point loss.

It was a side that featured 17 players with less than 100 games’ experience, as senior Eagles in Matt Owies, Tom Cole, Jack Petruccelle and Jayden Hunt were overlooked in favour of the likes of exciting young utility Jobe Shanahan, top draftee Bo Allan and Champion.

McQualter conceded the performance of his young side against the Giants frustrated the Eagles, but knew he had to continue down the path.

“I do get frustrated, and they (the players) do get super frustrated. And we want to win every game we’re in,” he said.

“We’re just going to keep competing and fighting and working our way through this.

“We’re seeing enough of our young players that if we get the work right and we get our system and the way we do things right, it’s going to turn around. We’ll keep focusing on what we do and then the outcomes will take care of themselves.”

While it is clear the Eagles are backing the kids, McQualter said he would continue to hold selection integrity and not hand games out for the sake of it.

“We’ll just pick the team based on what we think can win every week,” he said.

“We are going to learn a lot about our players this year. We already are.

“When they earn the right to play, we’ll play them, and we’ll learn about them either at AFL level or WAFL level.”

Arguably, the biggest positive out of the past two games has been the emergence of young utility Jobe Shanahan.

The 195cm key position played caught the eye with some of his efforts on debut against Collingwood, but showed his versatility against the Giants when he was tasked with playing as the spare man in defence when the Eagles were under siege early before being the focal point in attack after Jack Williams was subbed out at half-time.

Shanahan finished with a team-high two goals and drew praise from McQualter for being able to stick to both tasks in only his second game.

“He reads the ball flight so well and is composed. We had to try to take the heat out of the game,” he said.

“The Giants were all over us there for a period, so we tried to do that, and it worked a little bit at times, it was able to take the heat out of it. It’s a great trait that Jobe is able to do that for a young player.

“It shows just how much faith we have in Jobe … we think he’s a good player already, he’s calm and can handle a situation. It’s exciting.”

While Shanahan was able to hit the scoreboard, the Eagles have issues with their forward connection, managing only 12 scoring shots from 47 inside 50s in the absence of senior spearheads Oscar Allen and Jake Waterman.

“It’s a bit of an issue in our game at the moment that we’re working through,” McQualter said.

“We’re lacking a bit of efficiency in our front half, there’s multiple reasons for that, it’s not a single answer and we’re working our way through them.

“Unfortunately, we’re not quite connecting as much as we’d like. We only had six marks inside 50. We had lot of forward 50 stoppages tonight but couldn’t score from them. A bit of work to do.”

McQualter also put it on himself and the coaching staff to try to find a way to back up good performances like the one against the Magpies, having struggled to find consistency this year.

The Eagles shocked the AFL world when they led the premiership favourites at quarter and half-time before falling away as the game wore on.

They were unable to replicate that against GWS, conceding six of the first seven goals to effectively be out of the contest too early.

“There must be something with myself and our coaching group and the way we’re setting the week up when we have a decent performance, because were not quite able to back it up at the moment,” he said.

“We’ll look into it really closely and we need to get more consistent performance.

“Our good can be pretty good and can be dangerous but at the moment unfortunately our floor is pretty low.”