![\"Willem](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6ad2cf2da08c623dbfc3c59538d6886f4cb97e1c.jpg\")
Camera IconWillem Duursma of the Eagles runs with the ball. Credit: Daniel Carson\/AFL Photos<\/p>\nWest Coast\u2019s bid for a season-opening victory on the Gold Coast will need to come without the club\u2019s highest-profile off-season recruit after coach Andrew McQualter put a line through Brandon Starcevich on Monday.<\/p>\n
The two-time premiership Lion was lured back to his home state to bolster the young and often under-siege Eagles\u2019 defence, but Starcevich has been plagued with injuries throughout pre-season.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old missed Western Australia\u2019s historic AFL Origin clash with Victoria at Optus Stadium due to a minor ACL strain, while plans for his return in the match simulation against arch-rivals Fremantle were derailed by a calf strain.<\/p>\n
That same calf strain has also seen Starcevich ruled out of facing the Suns, who entered the round one clash off the back of a thumping 56-point victory over grand finalists Geelong.<\/p>\n
However, McQualter said the club were confident it was a short-term issue while also declaring he was hopeful fellow defenders Reuben Ginbey and Liam Duggan would be fit to start the season on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Starcevich) won\u2019t play this week,\u201d McQualter told 7NEWS.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just a little bit off it at the moment. We\u2019re confident it\u2019s not a long-term issue, and he won\u2019t be far away, but not this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cReubs looks good. He did our match sim on Saturday, and we\u2019re hopeful he\u2019ll get up. But as I said, there\u2019s a couple of training sessions to go. He\u2019s a really important part of our team.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuggo\u2019s passed his protocols, and he\u2019ll train this week and hopefully be ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second-year coach, who managed only one win amid a wooden spoon in his first year at the helm, was tight-lipped on the club\u2019s fleet of draftees, saying he needed to see how training went before locking in debutants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit hard to lock them in at the moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have two training sessions to go, but we\u2019ve certainly got a whole raft of our young players that have put themselves in a position to be close to the mark this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of belief in (Willem Duursma and Cooper Duff-Tytler). They\u2019re going to be long-term players for our football club. This game at 18 years old is really quite difficult, but we\u2019re hopeful they will be ready to play when asked.<\/p>\n
Camera IconWillem Duursma of the Eagles runs with the ball. Credit: Daniel Carson\/AFL Photos<\/p>\n
Beating the Gold Coast already looks a tough task in the wake of West Coast\u2019s 73-point pre-season loss to Port Adelaide less than a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n
The bookmakers have made their choice, with some closing the betting market on the Suns more than a week out from the clash.<\/p>\n
But McQualter is remaining optimistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just going to look to compete in every game and be a really tough team to play against. We understand the position we\u2019re in and what we need to do to catch up to the rest of the competition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019re going to be in a rush to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Coast\u2019s bid for a season-opening victory on the Gold Coast will need to come without the club\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85,7067],"class_list":["post-528813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-west-coast-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}