West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says Eagles must learn to win as a club North Melbourne disappointment

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West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says Eagles must learn to win as a club North Melbourne disappointment

Andrew McQualter concedes West Coast “didn’t handle the heat” late in the game and must learn how to close out matches after their late fade-away against North Melbourne in Bunbury.

The Kangaroos kicked the final four goals of the match to over-run the Eagles, who dominated much of the game before going down 9.8 (62) to 6.16 (52).

It comes a week after Geelong kicked the final seven of the final eight goals to blow away the Eagles who for three quarters had looked capable of an upset at Optus Stadium.

McQualter lamented his side’s inability to close out the game after being a “dominant football team” for much of the contest.

“When you’re dominating territory, you need to be able to punish teams on the scoreboard and we just weren’t able to do that… you need to be able to punish teams and put them away when you have the momentum,” McQualter said.

“In the last quarter they lifted, we didn’t handle the heat. We had too many fundamental errors. We’re going through this little ******* at the moment where we’re clearly playing better football, but we need to learn how to win.

“That’s real in our whole football club at the moment because we want to be in those positions more, but we want to be able to handle that point of the game better. That’s from the coaching, it’s from the players, it’s all of us together. We need to be able to put those games away.”

McQualter said the Eagles played into the Kangaroos’ hands by being too safe in the final term.

“We just need to keep being really vulnerable and open about our thoughts and feelings that we have in those moments,” he said.

“We’ll review that strongly because at the moment when you’re in that position at three-quarter time you need to go at the game. You need to keep attacking the game and I felt like we went safe, we went away from what we had done, and it just fuelled North’s game.

“They got their run-and-carry up and going, clearly belted us around stoppage so we need to be able to lean into those moments, you need to be able to look forward to those moments as a player rather than trying to save the game.”

Camera IconWest Coast let an 18-point lead slip in the loss to North Melbourne at Bunbury. Credit: Paul Kane/Getty Images

At half-time the Eagles had a whopping 39 inside-50s but had kicked only one goal. They had 11 behinds before they found their second.

McQualter said the inaccuracy hurting them when they dominated the game “breaks your heart”.

“The conditions are great, there was no problems with the conditions. It (inaccuracy) can be a bit contagious. That’s for real. We were 1.11 at one stage, it breaks your heart,” he said.

“I went down to the bench and there was belief in the players that we were playing the right way, and we had the game looking the right way so there was a little bit of frustration around not scoring but we didn’t go away from what we’re doing.

“There’s a little bit of our entry stuff that we still need some work on clearly, when you have those many entries and don’t score, there’s efficiency you need to improve but the players were still optimistic throughout that *******.”

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