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<\/p>\n
The Crows kicked nine of the first 11 goals of the game.<\/p>\n
But a slow start has cost the Eagles more than just this game this season.<\/p>\n
They have trailed at the first break in 13 of their 16 games.<\/p>\n
Friday night was the sixth of those games where the deficit has been four goals or more.<\/p>\n
The coach said there were multiple reasons why it\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a problem for sure, and we need to figure it out quickly, because there\u2019s not an easy answer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not one answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always been different reasons as to why, but ultimately we need to be in the game more at quarter time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve proven to be a pretty strong running team now, and our ability to finish games is strong, which is an improvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut yeah, too often it\u2019s been from behind the eight ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘He might be in some trouble’ Ralphy | 00:33<\/p>\n
McQualter is right. His side certainly finishes games better than they start.<\/p>\n
The Eagles have been behind in 14 of their 16 games this season.<\/p>\n
But they have lost only seven second halves. And two of those, against Richmond in round 8 and Melbourne in round 9, were by just one point.<\/p>\n
On Friday night, they trailed Adelaide by 43 points during the second quarter, but dragged the margin back to just 18 during the last quarter.<\/p>\n
They won the second half by five points.<\/p>\n
And while the Eagles are stuck on just four wins for the season, Friday night was their fifth loss by less than five goals.<\/p>\n
McQualter said the second-half fightback against the Crows, who will likely finish the round in fifth spot on the ladder, just percentage outside of the top four, is a good sign.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in the past, that game gets really a long way away from us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the growth of our team is to fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we gave ourselves a chance to win that game, which is somewhat pleasing in that aspect.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we just can\u2019t give any team a lead like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Coast coach Andrew McQualter knows he has a challenge ahead to get his side up and going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-777624","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"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777624","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=777624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}