West Coast coach Jarrad Schofield believes Eagles can draw confidence from Gold Coast’s poor road record

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West Coast coach Jarrad Schofield believes Eagles can draw confidence from Gold Coast’s poor road record

West Coast interim coach Jarrad Schofield believes his side can draw confidence from Gold Coast’s poor away record ahead of Friday night’s clash at Optus Stadium.

The Suns will head to Perth having been yet to taste victory away from the Glitter Strip this season, including one road loss against North Melbourne which saw Damien Hardwick call on his players to “grow the f… up”.

Schofield said he had raised the travel woes of their opponents with his side, but he expected the Suns, who need a win to keep their remote finals hopes alive, to produce a strong effort.

“(Their away record) doesn’t mean you’re going to get a win or make us compete any *******, but at the same time, it’s reality,” he said.

“They’re 0-9, they haven’t won away from home, six-day break, long travel, so I’m sure they’re speaking about it.

“It was mentioned but we’re purely focused on how we need to go about being better and being consistent and sustain it for longer.”

“More importantly, we get to play on the Friday night stage and in front of hopefully above 50,000 of our home crowd and our fans and supporters that have really supported us over the last two and a half years. That’s the carrot that will dangle in front of our players.”

West Coast will be without Hawthorn-linked defender Tom Barrass, who entered concussion protocols earlier this week, but Schofield confirmed Jeremy McGovern (ribs) and Liam Duggan (concussion) would come back into the side, saying some extra senior leadership would be invaluable.

“I think if they get the game on their terms through their contest and their field positions, they’re hard to beat … that’s probably the barometer for them, like us in our game as well,” he said.

Camera IconJeremy McGovern will return from injury on Friday night. Credit: Iain Gillespie/The West ***********

“Coming off a six-day break, our last six-day break wasn’t great for us, so once again, that’s the challenge for us.

“We’d like to see (Tom) Cole play up the ground a bit more, we saw bits of it last week so we’ll continue to explore that, but nothing will really change for us in terms of the guys that we’ve had in their positions over the last few weeks.”

Young midfielder Clay Hall, taken in the second round of last year’s national draft, will make a long-awaited debut for the Eagles against the Suns, which Schofield said was “exciting”.

“Over the last four to six weeks, we got into explore playing a little bit outside on the wing, instead of just being purely inside,” he said.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Camera IconClay Hall will make his long-awaited debut on Friday night. Credit: Kelsey Reid/The West ***********

“He has a really good profile with his running, he covers the ground really well (with his) speed and power, and when he goes inside, he plays tough football.

“With Clay, it was trying to get him to be patient over a ******* of time, because he works so hard on his game, he can see all his mates around him getting opportunities and he’s had to do that, be patient.”

Schofield said he expected the 19-year-old to play a wing role with spurts through the middle, but a final call was yet to be made on whether he would start as the substitute.

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