What an abomination that second quarter was by West Coast.
The Eagles should be embarrassed by the second quarter they produced against Gold Coast. It was horrible. Shocking. Uncompetitive. An absolute mess. And it led to the Suns winning 16.17 (113) to 6.7 (43) in what was their biggest ever victory outside of Queensland and third-largest win ever.
West Coast premiership captain Chris Judd was among the 36,219 in the crowd. We can only wonder what he was thinking. Fans had already made a statement given more than 47,000 people attended their last home game and experienced a 108-point thrashing.
The Eagles have had some horrid second terms this year. They gave up nine goals to Geelong in round five and six goals to Port Adelaide the following week. Those games were interstate. But on their home ground on a Friday night, West Coast were blown away.
The second quarter stats were ugly. Gold Coast won the clearances 14-3. The Eagles’ first clearance win came from a free kick during time on.
Gold Coast won the contested possessions 43-16. They made the most of that dominance to win the inside-50 battle 17-4 and boot 8.5 to 1.2 for the term. That equated to a 50-point lead at the long break. Game over.
Nothing summed up disaster more than one passage of play. Brady Hough played on from the wing, didn’t see Ben King and got bumped which caused a turnover. Jack Darling was still doing up his shoelaces behind play which allowed King to find Jack Lukosius inside 50. Fortunately for West Coast, he missed. But one team was switched on and winning contests and the other was spectating.
It was evident from early in the game that the ball was going to live inside Gold Coast’s forward half. But at least in the first term the Eagles showed they could be efficient. They had five scores from six forward entries.
Charlie Ballard was one of the prime reasons why the Eagles couldn’t get the ball forward. He took four intercept marks in the first quarter and West Coast couldn’t find a way to get past him.
By half-time, he’d taken five contested marks. The entire West Coast team had managed three. He finished with 10 intercept marks.
Matt Rowell ran wild through the midfield and King kicked four goals for the night. The Suns had winners everywhere.
The Eagles found their energy in the third quarter, kicking two goals in the first five minutes and winning the term. Their effort and intensity were clearly better. But that was too little too late. Gold Coast then kicked the last four goals of the game as the Eagles fell away again.
West Coast copped two more injuries with Jamaine Jones (broken nose) and Darling (arm) adding to their season of pain.
Reuben Ginbey continued his impressive debut season with 16 tackles and five clearances. He continues to show his teammates what’s possible. The Eagles need more players to follow his lead.