West Coast suffered their first defeat in a while on Thursday night, comfortably beaten by a Richmond team firing on all cylinders.
While the Eagles had won eight in a row, seven of those had been at home and now they find themselves with one of the toughest remaining fixtures.
They have a five-day break before taking on Essendon on Tuesday, then take on the Bulldogs on Sunday, St Kilda the following Thursday before finishing with North Melbourne.
Gerard Whateley believes West Coast has a minefield to work through if they want to host finals.
“Last night premiership favouritism changed hands and a place in the top four changed hands,” Whateley told AFL Nation.
“It can get really sticky really quickly for West Coast. I don’t think that has been explored because they have played the best footy – eight wins, seven of them at home.
“They come away, it’s a short, nasty break for them of four days and a relocation travel, not just travel, but they weren’t close to Richmond last night. They spent the whole night hanging around.
“I’ve had this view that (West Coast) is the one-seed because they’ve played such good footy, but they have played it in very confined circumstances and absolute circumstances that suit them.
“They had the best performance of the year against Collingwood and they probably played in the best game of the year against Geelong and ran them down.
“It’s not to diminish their credentials, but straight away they’re out of the top four and good luck getting back in.
“Good luck getting by Port, Brisbane, Richmond or Geelong and you can slip, like they can be sixth by the end of tomorrow.
“They’ve got one more four-day break. I think they go five days and then four days, they’ve got the worst of the fixture in the frenzy. Collingwood had the worst of the first frenzy and we saw what it did to them.
“The notion that they’re hosting finals and the like, they’re flat out hosting finals for me. I still think they’re in the battle to avoid seventh.”