\n West Coast relishing Gather Round stage as focus sharpens on Geelong\n <\/p>\n
\n By westcoasteagles.com.au\n <\/p>\n
Senior coach Andrew McQualter says West Coast is embracing the excitement and opportunity of Gather Round as the Eagles prepare to face Geelong at Norwood Oval on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the media in Adelaide, McQualter said the league-wide showcase had created a strong buzz, with the Eagles enjoying the change of scenery.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome, I think it\u2019s a great round for the league and we\u2019re excited to be a part of it.\u201d McQualter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t been to Norwood Oval before, so it\u2019s great we\u2019ve been able to get a training session here and we\u2019re really looking forward to Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
McQualter praised the Gather Round concept and said South Australia had proven a strong host for the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019ve done a great job here. I\u2019ve really enjoyed my time coming over and it seems like it\u2019s worked pretty well,\u201d McQualter said.<\/p>\n
Turning attention to the Eagles\u2019 on-field response after last weekend, McQualter said the group had reviewed its performance thoroughly and was determined to bounce back.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an incredibly disappointing performance, but this is what AFL footy is about,\u201d McQualter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get another opportunity and our guys are really keen to atone for that performance on last week with this game on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
McQualter said the broader body of work showed encouraging signs, with the emerging Eagles winning two close matches and learning from defeats to top-four contenders Gold Coast and Sydney.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re two and two, and we\u2019ve played two teams that have played incredibly well against us, while also being able to beat two teams,\u201d McQualter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done some good stuff in our game this season. What dropped away the most last week was our work rate around contest, which had actually been a strength for us prior to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got evidence that it works when we\u2019re dialled in, so that\u2019s going to be our focus this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norwood Oval\u2019s narrow dimensions are expected to bring a stronger emphasis on contest, something McQualter believes suits his side\u2019s mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a bit smaller than what we\u2019re used to, and the expectation is it\u2019ll be a highly contested game,\u201d McQualter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are more stoppages here on average than on bigger grounds, so we\u2019re going to have to be ready for that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the Cats are strong in that space as well and we\u2019re looking forward to the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Coast relishing Gather Round stage as focus sharpens on Geelong By westcoasteagles.com.au Senior coach Andrew McQualter says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":["post-597181","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-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597181","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=597181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}