West Coast Eagles coach Andrew McQualter praises side’s resilience after stirring win over Port Adelaide

West Coast coach Andrew McQualter has praised the resilience of his young group but says they have work to do on their first quarters after another slow start.

The Eagles defied 9.30am AWST start time, slammed as “unreasonable” by former Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley to upset the Power by two points in arguably their best win of McQualter’s tenure as coach.

But they had to once again come from behind after conceding the first four goals within eight minutes and trailing by 29 points early in the second term.

It came after West Coast conceded seven goals in each of the first quarters of their opening two games, putting them consistently on the back foot.

McQualter — who claimed consecutive victories for the first time as Eagles coach — said it was something they would need to address.

“Clearly we’ve got to do some work to do on our quarter ones at the moment, clearly it’s a trend and it’s a bit of a challenge in our game,” he said.

“To be behind the eight ball, crowd against us, scoreboard against us, we lose (Elliot) Yeo at half-time — I think just the group’s resilience is starting to shine through.

“Young and old players stood up in huge moments there, and all through the second half, the last five minutes of the game. So that’s probably the most pleasing thing from my aspect.”

Talk around the early start time dominated the lead-up into the contest, with experts panning the AFL for the fixture anomaly.

Former Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley even referenced its impact as the Eagles struggled at the start of the game.

“It’s a tough gig to turn up and play at 9am in the morning,” Hinkley told Fox Footy.

“I think it’s unreasonable in today’s game to actually ask for that to happen.

“There are things called charter flights. I reckon you can get a flight home at a reasonable hour, about 6 o’clock tonight, and still be back in Perth by 6pm.”

West Coast star Harley Reid made fun of the game time on social media moments after the victory, posting a photo of shirtless but delighted ruckman Matt Flynn with the caption “Time for breakfast” on his Instagram story.

McQualter said the early start time of the game wasn’t the reason behind their slow start.

“Even though it looked like we were asleep in quarter one today, it’s unfortunately a trend,” he said.

“At the moment, we are leaking far too many goals, so we’re going to go away, work on it. We’ll look at our preparation, our meetings pre-game, we’ll have a look at it, and hopefully try to rectify it.”

West Coast made a point during the week of not getting too carried away after their drought-breaking victory over North Melbourne.

The attention to detail paid off with McQualter saying it was a good sign of growth for the reigning wooden spooners.

“I will say it again, we’ve now got six days until we play the Swans,” he said.

“They’ve been formidable early in this season. We’ve seen them play a few times, and they look like they’ve changed a bit.

“They look like they’re playing an attacking brand of football, so it’s a pretty big challenge, but hopefully we get Optus Stadium filled and as loud as it was last week. It was an awesome atmosphere.”