West Coast co-captain Liam Duggan says he ‘can’t question’ Eagles’ effort in damning GWS defeat

West Coast co-captain Liam Duggan says he can’t fault the effort of his Eagles in their 81-point defeat to premiership contenders Greater Western Sydney on Sunday.

And there will be no “hard conversations” in the camp, instead Duggan says they will focus on education despite recording a loss by 80 or more points for the second time in four games.

The Eagles head to Gather Round winless and on the back of a thumping at the hands of premiership fancies GWS, with Giants forward Jesse Hogan an equal career-high nine goals.

It comes just weeks after Gold Coast belted West Coast by 87 points in their season opener at Optus Stadium in a tough start under new coach Andrew McQualter.

The numbers were damning for West Coast, with the Giants recording eight more centre clearances, 118 more uncontested possessions, 53 more marks, 23 more marks inside 50 and 14 more tackles.

Duggan said they would not have tough talks in the wake of another disappointing performance.

“It won’t be hard conversations. It’ll all be learning to be educational,” he said.

“Whoever it is, leaders down to our first-gamers... as everything we’ve been doing lately has been educational.

“I can’t really question the effort, I thought that was there. I just think a much better team on the day played their system a lot better than we did.”

The Eagles will continue on the road, heading to Adelaide on Sunday night to prepare for their clash against fellow winless side Carlton at the Adelaide Oval on Saturday.

Duggan said they would use the time away to build relationships and the new gameplan under coach McQualter.

“Time away together with a young group is always handy and we played probably one of our better games for the season off the back of this week last year,” he said.

“We look forward to getting away together, spend some quality time and getting down to that game because at the end of the day we want to be back playing footy and being the in the game right into the last quarter.”

This weekend’s clash against the battling Blues is arguably their best chance to get on the winner’s list in 2025 and Duggan conceded they wanted to know what it felt like to win under McQualter’s style.

“We want to see what that feels like, we want to play that for four quarter and we believe in the brand that we’re going after,” he said.

“We just haven’t been able to get that right so far for long enough.

“We’ll keep chasing it. We think we’re doing the right things and there’s just executing now. Regardless of who we’re playing we think we can have a chance. We need to bring our best.”