‘All parties lose’: Eagles under fire for ‘degrading’ defensive move with in-demand star that left Hawks ‘shocked’

Dual premiership Kangaroo David King has labelled West Coast’s decision to play Oscar Allen in defence – a potential long-term move, according to coach Andrew McQualter – as “degrading” for the co-captain, declaring “all parties are losing”.

In his first full game since Round 5, Allen on Sunday was deployed as a key back for the Eagles in their 50-point loss to Hawthorn.

Allen finished with 10 disposals, five marks and three intercepts in his match up with Hawks forward Mabior Chol, who played arguably his best game of the season yet with 3.2 from 17 disposals and nine marks (three contested).

FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every match of every round in the 2025 Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer.

It was a rare appearance in defence for Allen, who’s kicked 143.77 from 99 AFL games playing primarily as a key forward-ruck.

It also comes as conjecture remains over the co-captain’s future, given he’s still eligible for free agency at season’s end amid an underwhelming contract offer from West Coast and ample interest from cashed-up rival clubs.

Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell – who recently met with the off-contract Allen in Perth – admitted post-game his team was “a little bit shocked” by Allen’s defensive move, but said he understood McQualter’s balance conundrum.

King on Fox Footy’s First Crack pointed to some vision of Allen’s performance against the Hawks, raising concerns over his competitiveness and attitude in defence.

“All parties are losing here. You’re getting nothing out of him as a player. I don’t think he wants to be there down back,” King told First Crack.

“This is not the effort of a captain – that’s poor. He’s not flying for the ball, he’s not committing his body, he doesn’t want contact … he’s not flying, just half-cringing.

“If you’re the captain, you’ve got to go, you’ve got to compete – I understand all that and they’ll challenge him to be better in those moments. But I just think you’re being stubborn as a football club and as a coach putting him down back. I think it’s degrading for the player.

“It’s not going well, move him back forward, get through to the end of the year and reassess from there. You can’t have the hate for another 15 weeks.”

King doubled down on his thoughts on Monday morning.

“I think the West Coast Eagles need to sit down for five minutes and say: ‘What are we actually doing here? Let’s see through the fog in front of us and say are we handling our people with the class and the dignity they deserve? I think what they’re doing with Oscar Allen is poor,” King told SEN Breakfast.

Dual All-Australian Leigh Montagna agreed there were “no winners” out of playing Allen in defence, but said McQualter shouldn’t cop the majority of the blame.

“He (Allen) has to help himself with better efforts than that,” Montagna said on Fox Footy’s First Crack. “I understand you can put that on a coach, but I’m putting that on the player – to show a bit more pride.”

Despite the external criticism, McQualter post-match said Allen was “pretty solid” against Hawthorn.

“It was his first full game back for a while, I thought he had some nice moments and then some moments where he looked like he hadn’t played back for a while, which is to be expected,” he told reporters on Sunday night.

“I know Chol got a couple of clear jumps at the ball – which is hard, you don’t want ‘Mabs’ to be able to get that – but I thought there was some good signs.”

Asked if playing Allen in defence was a long-term option for the Eagles, McQualter said; “Yeah, potentially. We’re open to it and we’re just going to work our way through it with ‘Oz’ and our team. But yeah, potentially.”

McQualter said he considered swinging Allen into attack during Hawthorn’s mid-game blitz but ultimately decided against it.

“We spoke about it, but I don’t know if that was totally fair on Oscar,” McQualter said.

“I think he built up going into the game to play as a back, so we just stuck to that.

“He had some moments where he kept growing.”

Asked what he made of Allen’s move into defence, Mitchell told reporters on Sunday night: “That’s not my team, so I’m not sure.

“The challenge probably that ‘Mini’ (McQualter) has got is he’s got a lot of talented talls … I think they’ve got a couple of really good marking options in front of the ball.

“I think (Archer) Reid is going to be a really good player in particular, so moving Oscar to make sure he can keep all his young talent on the field made a bit of sense for us.

“We obviously were a little bit shocked by it. We only knew about it in the warm-up. When he started warming up with the defenders, we realised that would probably happen and had to shuffle a couple of things. But I thought we handled it pretty well.”

Asked by a reporter “given the circumstances” of his meeting with Allen that he was disappointed the 26-year-old Eagle didn’t play forward, Mitchell laughed and said: “No. Very much focused on Hawthorn and our season. I won’t be looking at what the opposition do, that’s up to them. We don’t play West Coast again, so not too concerned about the way they line up.”