‘Unfair’: Andrew McQualter defends West Coast after wasteful loss... and why he’s not ‘delusional’

West Coast head coach Andrew McQualter has bristled at suggestions West Coast’s rebuild is stalling, labelling a line of questioning about his side’s development as “unfair”.

The second-year Eagles coach joined Fox Footy’s AFL 360 on Monday night alongside former Richmond colleague Damien Hardwick, 48 hours after his side lost by 11 points on Saturday evening to a winless Richmond side at Optus Stadium.

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Despite two wins from their first three games in 2026, McQualter’s side has since been dealt two triple-figure losses in their last five matches to have queries arise over their on-field progress. The Eagles went into the Round 8 fixture against the Tigers as comfortable favourites, having been often compared to them in recent years given their similar status as a club amid a rebuild.

Hardwick, who was McQualter’s head coach during his time as an assistant at Punt Road, also defended his now-counterpart in his second year at the helm, citing synergy as one of a number of issues that are tough to deal in his situation.

Read the full transcript between McQualter, Hardwick and AFL 360 hosts Garry Lyon and Gerard Whateley below.

Garry Lyon: “Mini, a really promising start for the Eagles. You’re 2-1, and the footy world’s barracking for you because it’s been pretty tough over there at the Eagles for a while. Things have dropped off now to the point where that was a really disappointing loss. Against a team that from a skill and availability level, for one of the few occasions where you go in with your nose in front I think. How disappointing is that afternoon for you?

Andrew McQualter: “It was disappointing to lose, Gaz. I’ve been flat for a couple of days. I think ‘Dimma’ used to speak about how you used to go into a ‘dark coma’ after you lose a game of footy as a coach. But it’s funny, you look back at that game, and we had 64 (inside 50s) with 58% time in forward half. It’s not without hope, so I understand the narrative behind it, and we wanted to win that game as much as anyone. But, we did give ourselves a chance. I think they took eight contested marks in their forward 50, which is a massive number, and credit to them for doing so. Although we didn’t get the win, we actually had some improvement in our game on the weekend compared to the previous few weeks. We probably lost a little bit of our defensive intent over that period of time, which was unfortunate. There will be ebbs and flows with our team and where we’re at.”

Tigers end dire 12-game losing streak | 01:23

GL: It’s a little hard to hear, and we take all the information on board. But, when you have that degree of control over a game and you’re not able to put it away, does it not suggest that you’re not moving as quickly as you would like? Had that been Hawthorn or Brisbane, we’d go: ‘Okay, I understand that’. But, you get a good look (against Richmond), so what’s it saying about your rate of development?

AM: I think that’s a bit of an unfair question, to be honest Gaz. We’ve got 15 new players on our list, we’ve had an incredible amount of turnover in the last two years since I’ve been at the football club — almost half of our football club is new. There’s synergy, it takes time for these guys to play together; particularly in our forward line. We understand that we’ve got some work to do, and we’re not shying away from that. We think we’ve got more talent on our list than we’ve had, and now we’ve got to do the work. It’s really going to be a lot of hard work done together to get results that we need. I think that people understand what we’ve done in this list build over the last two years. I understand it’s been a challenging time for our football club for five years, but we feel like we’re on the right path. It’s going to take some time, but we’re doing the right things to build a premiership list.

GL: I’m not being argumentative for the sake of it, but there would be others that would say: ‘We heard Elliot Yeo speak post-game (to 3AW), and was very defensive about it’. It’s fair to judge it pretty harshly on that performance I would think. I’m appreciative and cognisant that you are in development and turning players over. You played a side that had 27 players available, so I think that level of scrutiny is fair.

AM: We understand that we were in a position to win the game and we didn’t win. I’m not going to sit here and argue semantics about the age profile of either team, because we can do that all day. But, everyone understands that both sides are young, both Richmond and us are in a similar position. We had a little bit more availability than them (and) we’ve got some issues in our game that we’re trying to work on at the moment.

Gerard Whateley: So, you against you from last year to this year, are you not as far advanced as you anticipated you would be?

AM: From this time last year to now ... I’m not delusional, because I still understand that we’re 15th on the ladder, and have only won two games and lost (big) a couple of games. But, we’ve actually improved our game of football since last year. The metrics are all telling us we’ve improved our stoppage game and contest game. We’ve obviously got some issues with defending behind the ball at the moment and scoring against, but there are some signs that we’re actually improving. Don’t take that the wrong way and think we’ve got everything sorted, because we haven’t, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do. But, we think that we’re doing the right stuff with our list and the way we’re coaching this team. It’s going to take some time, but hopefully we’re getting there.

McQualter defends side after shock loss | 08:06

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