West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says the Eagles have “improved” despite a disastrous defeat to the previous winless Richmond by 11 points at Optus Stadium on Saturday.

The Eagles were heavy favourites heading into the game despite a torrid four-match losing streak, with the visitors battling with 17 injuries and not having won since the corresponding game in round 19 of last year.

However, Richmond proved too fast and too furious for the rebuilding side, spoiling the 20-year celebrations for the premiership reunion with a 15.9 (99) to 13.10 (88) triumph.

McQualter said while he was disappointed, he could see the positives out of their latest loss, which had already drawn the ire of fans.

“I thought our football improved a bit today compared to what it had been the past few months,” he said.

“There were some parts of our game that were strong, but there were just some parts that let us down, and they took I think, nine contested marks in their forward 50.

“We knew we were going in small and it was a slight risk. It’s just a little bit of our lot at the moment that we’ve got. They’re mature guys in that front half in particular (Tom) Lynch and (Noah) Balta ... they clunked a few and they scored from that which was a bit of a shame for us but there were parts of our game that I thought were OK.”

McQualter is set to face criticism over his selections, recalling senior players Tom Cole and Matt Owies at the expense of 2024 first-round draftee Bo Allan.

The second-year coach said his policy around the team would not change despite being unable to get the desired result.

“It doesn’t change ... we’ve got to make sure we never cut it too deep and go too young which we have a little bit this year already,” McQualter said.

“The risk is, if we expose all of our young players at once and just throw them in the same team together, it doesn’t work, so we’re not going to do that. I’ve been really consistent in that.

“And we’ve rewarded form for players at WAFL level and we’ll continue to do that. This is a disappointing outcome but we’re not going to catastrophise it. It’s not the end of the world, we’ll butter up, we’ll get to work and keep trying to improve.”

Asked if he picked the right side, McQualter said: “It’s one of those things in hindsight it’s an easy question to ask, but the answer is I don’t know. I can’t answer it.

“We picked we thought the best 23 players to win this game of football and we didn’t get the job done.”

West Coast’s discipline was again an issue, giving away 23 free kicks — seven more than the opposition including some costly 50m penalties which cost them goals.

“It hurt us, in the last quarter (they kicked) two goals from 50s and 23 free kicks against is a pretty high number,” McQualter said.

“There were a lot of free kicks paid, we gave away a large amount. It certainly hurts our pressure game, it hurts your ability to win the contest so it’s a work on for us.”

McQualter did acknowledge that from the outside the loss to the bottom-placed Richmond would draw heavy criticism for his club but said nothing changed from the start of the game.

“We’ve just got to keep working, keep training really hard, keep improving the way we play, keep educating our players,” he said.

“We’re incredibly clear on our plan and what we’re doing and the path we’re on. We will have blips over the next little period of time; there’s no question about that.

“It will be worth it. I think we saw some pretty growth signs from individuals today. Willem (Duusma)‘s moment late in the game, for our fans to see that, that was special. And Harley (Reid) I thought stood up and played a good game of football.

“We’re getting games into Cooper (Duff-Tytler) and Josh (Lindsay) and Jobe (Shanahan) and Reuben (Ginbey) and all these guys are getting lots of games together, which is important for us and part of our plan. And we’ll keep working.”