Former Eagles premiership player Peter Sumich has questioned West Coast’s selection decisions after last weekend’s heartbreaking 9-point defeat to North Melbourne.
The Kangaroos finally got on the winners’ list after surviving a late 33-point comeback from West Coast in the final quarter.
However, West Coast’s first three quarters lacked the accuracy and pep seen during the final quarter – kicking 2.15 before the three-quarter time break.
Speaking on Sports Breakfast, Sumich believes the game was lost at the selection table, stating Chief Executive Don Pyke has some decisions to make.
“I still think the selection’s been wrong and it hasn’t been good enough,” he said.
You’re leaving out players like Jack Williams and Zane Trew who’s played 25 minutes, and he doesn’t get a go. Then you see Gaff and the likes running around.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to play some of these kids and that’s what we want to see and if we get the same result, I don’t think we’d be too worried.”
Heading into this weekend’s match West Coast made three changes, bringing in Jake Waterman and Jai Culley to replace Trew, Williams and Harley Reid.
Jack Hutchinson – who was taken in pick three in the recent Mid-Season Draft, made his debut after kicking five goals on the WAFL debut.
While Hutchinson was spotted around the ball, he came away with four touches, three tackles and three inside 50s.
Sumich has questioned why Hutchinson was selected ahead of other players believing it has a demoralising effect on the non-selected players.
“There’s a bit of a cover-up with this young kid playing. He had four touches,” he said.
“You’ve done a full preseason, you worked your butt off, you’re halfway through the season and you’ve been in and out a bit and then the team recruits a player and off one week comes straight into the side and you’re out.
“How would you be feeling after doing a preseason and most all the work? And then this kid isn’t a world-beater. I think he might be okay, but he had four touches.”
In his post-mortem, Sumich was also quick to criticise Jack Darling’s performance after quarter time. Darling finished with seven touches – six coming from the first quarter only.
He says it’s ‘mind-boggling’ to keep selecting Darling for his lacklustre showing when Williams was benched for the week.
“How can you have the senior player in a game like that, the last second, third and fourth quarter, you have one touch, I just find it mind-boggling,” he said.
“You’ve got a Jack Williams, sitting there up, and I’m thinking I’d rather play this kid and see what he’s got.
“Over to Don Pyke. He’s got to make some decisions. I think Adam should resign or they should move on him straight away. There’s no mucking around here anymore.”
“He’s got to be gone because you can’t survive any of this.”
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