West Coast Eagles youngster Elijah Hewett is calling for greater accountability and selection pressure on those unwilling to compete.
Hewett has been one of the Eagles’ rare positives in their otherwise poor, one-win season.
But after another big loss to Melbourne on Saturday, a visibly dejected Hewett offered an honest review of West Coast’s effort.
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“If you’re not competing and don’t want to win, then you can’t really play for this side. We’ve got to hold each other accountable during the week,” he said.
“We’ve got the opportunity to be a part of something great and nothing is more fulfilling to me than a team bottom of the ladder working its way to the top.
“I’ve been put in a special position to play for the team I have loved growing up and taking it to the top with teammates I love.
“It starts off right now with the game review, figuring out what went wrong and what went right. I think what went wrong today was a bit of intent, a bit of role stuff, execution. We’ve got to figure it out.
“We’ve got to be stronger at the ball. There was too many times we pulled up and didn’t put our head over the footy. We’ve got to figure that out and be tougher.”
Hewett, 21, has played in just four wins across his 31-game career.
He says the pain of this year, with just the solitary win against St Kilda, has cut the group deep.
“Just not getting wins, you play footy to win, you don’t play footy to play,” he said.
“There’s only so long you can kind of keep going without getting a win. It’s just good to fuel momentum at least getting a win on the board.
“We’ve had one the whole season, so it’s been really tough. We’ve got to stay locked in and find the positives week to week.
“They (the Eagles young players) are incredibly invested … it’s quite emotional to be honest, quite upsetting not getting the results we want, but we’ll stick fat.
“Guys have the right intent, they want to get better, I can trust that.”
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