After a winless start to their AFLW season, West Coast will be confronted by one of the competition\u2019s sternest tests at Mineral Resources Park on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Eagles, who will be known as Waalitj Malawar for the competition\u2019s Indigenous Round, will be aiming to break a run of three consecutive defeats against Melbourne, who have adopted the name Naarm.<\/p>\n
The Demons entered the fourth round of the season sitting second on the ladder, behind only powerhouses North Melbourne on percentage after winning their first three games.<\/p>\n
And they will come into their clash with 15th-placed West Coast after making a huge statement of intent last week, smashing last year\u2019s beaten grand finalists Brisbane by 56 points.<\/p>\n
Eagles coach Daisy Pearce, a Melbourne legend who won an AFLW premiership in her final appearance for the club, was full of praise for the side the Demons had assembled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve played a lot of footy together,\u201d Pearce said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust how connected they are, whether it\u2019s defensively or how quickly they all react to get dangerous offensively, I think it\u2019s their great strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite not coming away with their first win of the season on the road against Adelaide last Saturday, Pearce said the Eagles had drawn confidence from the performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a bit more out of the game that looked like us and gave us a blueprint of what\u2019s really important for us to get after,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really believe in the playing group that we\u2019ve got, and we know that our best is competitive against anyone.<\/p>\n
\u201c0-3 is not ideal, but the equation\u2019s still the same. We\u2019ve got an opportunity to knock one of those wins off this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Eagles have made a huge selection call for the contest, with defender Georgie Cleaver \u2014 who finished fourth in their best and fairest last season \u2014 among three omissions.<\/p>\n
Top-up player Lisa Steane and Isabella Shannon have also come out of their side, and will be replaced by 2025 draftee Mia Russo, forward Kayla Dalgleish and utility Roxy Roux.<\/p>\n
Melbourne have brought in forwards Maggie Mahony and Alyssia Pisano for Mia Austin (managed) and Lauren Pearce (injured).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a winless start to their AFLW season, West Coast will be confronted by one of the competition\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12143,260,261,516],"class_list":["post-88889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-aflw","tag-melbourne","tag-sport","tag-west-coast-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}