West Coast coach Andrew McQualter has called on Harley Reid to show better discipline after the young gun lost his cool multiple times during the Eagles’ heavy loss to Geelong on Sunday.
The Eagles matched Geelong in the early stages, but were blown away by a devastating five-goal burst from the Cats in the second quarter.
Reid had 22 disposals and kicked a goal to be among his side’s better players, but also gave away five free kicks, including one in the final quarter for dropping the knees into Tom Atkins.
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He also gave away a 50m penalty earlier in the match that resulted in an easy goal to Sam De Koning.
The undisciplined acts came a week after Reid was slammed for “petulant behaviour” in the Eagles’ heavy loss to Sydney.
“Harley let himself down in that area today and he knows that,” McQualter said.
“That was not the way we want Harley to play.
“But I also thought he had parts of his game that were strong.
“We’ll keep working with him like we do with all our players.
“He’s a very, very good player. He’s important to us. But we want him to be important to us for the whole time. We want to ensure his discipline doesn’t tip over.”
Young gun Josh Lindsay also gave up a 50m penalty late in the game that resulting in a certain goal to Ollie Henry.
“We let ourselves down today in that part of the game. That was disappointing,” McQualter said.
“That was disappointing. It’s something we need to rectify really quickly. We can’t afford to be undisciplined and give away any scores. We’ll get to work on it.
“Sometimes frustration boils over. Sometimes fatigue comes into it. But ultimately it is a team game and you can’t let your own individual frustrations become a team problem.
“It’s something we don’t want to have in our club and our team. We will speak about it and ensure it doesn’t become a thing.”
The Eagles coach noted that once the Cats took control, they were too strong in contested play.
“Pretty much every contest metric you look at, they got a hold of us as the game went on,” McQualter said.
“It just overwhelmed us today by the end, a little bit – a great lesson for our guys to go through.”
Jobe Shanahan’s four goals were a highlight and ruckman Bailey Williams had seven clearances in his first senior game this season.
– With AAP
