When the all-time top scorer on the West Coast couldn’t split the center from a blank spot, you sensed it would always be a tough day for the Eagles.
In fact, some commentators and fans thought that Josh Kennedy was left behind in the first quarter of Saturday’s clash with Adelaide summed up the 2022 West Coast campaign, which was on the decline.
After Adelaide threw the first 32 points (5.2) of the game, the Eagles won a rare central clearance and pushed the ball up to 50.
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Kennedy was able to get rid of Crows defender Tom Doedee, who hit the Adelaide Oval turf. But Kennedy dropped an indisputable simple mark, and then, when some pressure from Crows reached ground level at the top of the goal, he missed a single shot and hit a back.
It was the Eagles’ only score in the early period and a good indication of the extent of their early struggles.
“That sums up what we’ve seen from the West Coast Eagles so far this term, and the coach can’t believe what he’s seeing,” Fox Footy commentator Mark Howard said while showing off the disaffected Eagles coach Adam Simpson, with his head in his hands. .
Triple M commentator Bernie Vince said “it can’t be worse than that,” while Northern legend Wayne Carey said of Kennedy, “He’s had a first-quarter mare.”
Key striker Jack Darling was able to ease the pressure of the Eagles at the start of the second term, throwing his team’s first goal of the game.
But Adelaide retained control, and by the end of their third term, the Crows had a 46-point lead.
It sparked fears on the West Coast that it could become the first AFL-era team to have eight straight losses by more than 50 points, an “unwanted record,” according to Howard, and usurp the Giants of 2013 and 1995 Fitzroy.
“I’m not sure Adam Simpson would be aware of the stats we’re talking about … but that would be motivating for the players,” Brownlow medalist Gerard Healy told Fox Footy. “They do not want to be part of it.
“Right now, they are waiting there, it is approaching but they are waiting.
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“Sometimes when you take off your pants, you need a little external motivation just to talk about it. You can’t keep talking about the same things day after day when they whip you.”
The Eagles have only won one game this season and have now lost 15 of their last 16 games.
“When is it enough?” Brownlow medalist Mark Ricciuto asked Fox Footy. “The pressure is on Adam Simpson now.
“We know that they have had Covid, we know that they have had injuries and we know that they have been a great team with the 2018 Grand Final.
“When will they start going to the draft or change players to try to move forward quickly to rebuild to try to be a dominant club again as they have been for most of their history?”
Luckily for the Eagles fans, their team found some pace at the end of the game, scoring four unanswered goals during the third and fourth periods to make sure they didn’t “beat” that unwanted record.
Kennedy scored a goal at the end of the fourth season to reduce Adelaide’s lead to 21 points.
But the Crows responded through Rory Laird and Jake Soligo, with a final margin of 31 points.
“I think they’ve laid a foundation for what might be the second half of the season,” Healy said of the Eagles ’second-half fight.
“Much better effort, some little kids looking at it more.
“It doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a win the next time they come out because their draw is pretty tough, but today they’ve learned a little bit about themselves.”