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It was the first time West Coast had suffered a triple-figure defeat since their horrendous 2023 campaign, which saw them lose five games by 100 points or more.<\/p>\n
The Swans result came after consecutive stirring victories over North Melbourne and Port Adelaide in Rounds 2 and 3 respectively.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Fox Sports News\u2019 AFL Tonight, Schofield accused the Eagles of jumping the gun before a \u201cputrid\u201d and \u201cabsolutely terrible\u201d loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe margin is everything. You start talking again where this footy club has been the last few years, I thought the 128-point losses were behind this group,\u201d Schofield told AFL Tonight.<\/p>\n
Swans crush Eagles by 128 points | 02:53<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly internally with some of the voices coming out from the playing group, from coaches, from admin staff at the club that after a couple of weeks of wins, I think (there was) a little bit of head wobble going on. \u2018Look at us, we\u2019ve won a couple of games, we\u2019ve finally turned the corner and now we\u2019re a legitimate football club.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, a 130-point loss says differently and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s acceptable anymore for this group.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, they\u2019ve got young players, yes they\u2019re a rebuilding team, we know that. But that doesn\u2019t mean you can put out a 130-point loss and say \u2018that\u2019s OK\u2019. I\u2019ll continue to call that out. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s acceptable from the West Coast Eagles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think internally, even though the messaging\u2019s been different externally, they\u2019d have to be going very hard at the players. You\u2019d hope so, at least, because padding around a performance like this and saying \u2018oh, we did this well and we did that well\u2019, I\u2019d be disappointed if that\u2019s the messaging internally at West Coast, because it simply wasn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n
A significant talking point to emerge from the Eagles\u2019 loss was the attention Harley Reid copped from Swans on-baller James Jordon.<\/p>\n
While Schofield said Reid\u2019s ability to deal with taggers would improve with a better fitness base and workrate, he urged Eagles players to better support their star young midfielder.<\/p>\n
Harley Reid of the Eagles and Justin McInerney of the Swans wrestle. Picture: Paul Kane\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the day, it felt like there was a bit of discipline (issues). But reflecting back, I actually don\u2019t think it\u2019s a discipline thing and I don\u2019t think that is the big issue with Harley Reid \u2013 if he has one. He is still young, he\u2019s still developing and he\u2019s still learning,\u201d Schofield said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest ones for Harley for me is his fitness \u2013 he looks a lot fitter than last year, but I think that needs to go to another level again \u2013 and his workrate. If you\u2019re working on things with Harley, they\u2019re the two for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI watched him walk from stoppage on multiple occasions, his second and third efforts just weren\u2019t there. That is an issue that you can fix.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the discipline stuff, I think it\u2019s a bit of a beat up, if I\u2019m honest. And I was involved with it (on the night), but on reflection, I think that\u2019s where it\u2019s at.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then his teammates need to find a way to help him succeed. He is their best player, he is their superstar \u2013 and superstars around the competition are protected by their teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cNick Daicos, you don\u2019t have to look too much further than him. At Collingwood, they find a way to give him a footy, which is the best way to get him into the game, and they protect him as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to see more of that at West Coast from his teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Premiership Eagle Will Schofeld believes West Coast got ahead of itself before its record loss to Sydney on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[49,638,64,63,689,55,639,3423,289617,26517,289622,289621,667,653,2105,289620,138110,100196,289618,289619,673,677,3473,46,6082,91265,1124,85,670,7200,7067,3439,45705],"class_list":{"0":"post-593193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-admin-staff","9":"tag-afl","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","13":"tag-australian-football-league","14":"tag-australianfootballleague","15":"tag-ben-waterworth","16":"tag-consecutive-stirring-victories","17":"tag-daniel-carson","18":"tag-discipline-stuff","19":"tag-discipline-thing","20":"tag-footy-club","21":"tag-fox-sports-news","22":"tag-getty-images-inc","23":"tag-head-wobble","24":"tag-james-jordon","25":"tag-justin-mcinerney","26":"tag-legitimate-football-club","27":"tag-massive-triple-defeats","28":"tag-new-south-wales","29":"tag-oceania","30":"tag-paul-kane","31":"tag-perth","32":"tag-port-adelaide","33":"tag-rebuilding-team","34":"tag-south-australia","35":"tag-sports","36":"tag-sydney","37":"tag-sydney-swans","38":"tag-west-coast-eagles","39":"tag-western-australia","40":"tag-will-schofield"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593193","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=593193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}