West Coast’s Adam Simpson encountered a strange situation when he opted to coach from the bench during the second half of Sunday’s Western Derby.
The Eagles were again struck by the injury curse with four key players going down in the second quarter while another few battled through the eventual 41-point loss to Fremantle.
Captain Luke Shuey suffered another hamstring injury, Jeremy McGovern sustained what is considered a serious high hamstring tear, Jamie Cripps ended up in hospital with a broken ankle and Alex Witherden was concussed.
Simpson said he went to show his support on the sidelines only to be greeted by a barren bench.
“Every club has stages where they go through things like this and connecting with the younger guys as well (is important),” he said at his post-match press conference.
“Changing some stuff up at half-time, it was important that we got that right.
“I turned around to provide a bit of support to the players but there was nobody on the bench, so I was just talking to the other coaches or the bench people.
“In the end I was watching because there was no one on the bench to talk to.”
Throw in Liam Ryan who had a sore knee, among other things, and a couple of other unspecified players who had to stay on the ground due to the situation and it was a disastrous day for the Eagles.
“We’re probably going to lose six or seven players from today,” Simpson added.
“We have to wait (on the other players) because they were out there, because there was no choice.
“I said to them at three quarter time that in juniors you don’t want to come off, well that’s happening this quarter.
“Liam went back on at stages and was pretty brave. In the end we got overwhelmed and they were better side and we tip our hat to Fremantle.”
West Coast has a tricky fortnight coming up with fixtures against Melbourne (Optus Stadium) and Geelong (Adelaide Oval).
They will have to turn to some developing youngsters out of the WAFL to help fill the void.
“We’ve got Melbourne this week and then Geelong, without looking too far ahead,” Simpson said further.
“We had a good game (on Saturday) at WAFL Eagles, we had 14 players play, had a good win and we’ll be able to use some of those kids coming through and get on with it.
“Some of our boys will be out for a long period of time and that’s unfortunate and sad, but it’s Round 3 so we’ve got to keep moving forward.”
Simpson said Elliot Yeo (calf) is a chance of getting up for next weekend’s clash with the Demons.
The Eagles find themselves 12th on the ladder with a 1-2 record.