Just out of reach for Josh Kennedy as a pack stretches for the ball in the last Western Derby.
Camera IconJust out of reach for Josh Kennedy as a pack stretches for the ball in the last Western Derby. Credit: Supplied/Getty Images

Western Derby: West Coast Eagles wary they’re still not finals lock ahead of Fremantle Dockers clash

Josh KennedyEastern Reporter

WE haven’t yet locked down a top-eight spot, so we know we have some work to do and we need to find a way to take our game to another level.

While Fremantle’s season has not panned out the way they would have imagined, we have great respect for them and are looking forward to the challenge of this Sunday’s Western Derby.

While the rivalry gets talked up all over the State, we’ll just focus on preparing for another quality opponent.

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In this competition, which is so tight, you can’t afford to drop off even slightly because the opposition will take advantage of it.

While there seems to be a split between the top eight and the rest of the competition, any team on any given day is capable of beating another.

We probably need one more win to guarantee our place in the finals, so that will be our target going into the derby.

We want to lock away that top- eight spot and then start to work on pushing higher up the ladder.

Not only are we looking to be more consistent from week to week, but we need to maintain our standards and our style of play from quarter to quarter.

There have been a few games this year where we have met the standards we expect from each other, as well as the team collectively, but we simply haven’t been consistent enough.

That was the case against Collingwood.

We played some really good footy in the third quarter to work our way back into the game and we took the lead early in the last quarter, but then we dropped away again.

It’s always a long haul on the way home after a loss and it seemed longer than most return trips after the Collingwood game last weekend.

But you can’t afford to dwell on what happened for too long.

You need to analyse the game and look at the things you didn’t do as well as you could have, as well as highlight the positives.

We do that with the coaches early in the week and then we move on.