West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says he’s feeling the fans’ “pain” after the Eagles let a golden opportunity for a rare road victory slip through their fingers at the MCG on Sunday.

The Eagles slumped to an 11-point defeat, the club’s eighth on the trot, against Richmond despite having more scoring shots than the home side who sat bottom of the ladder entering the weekend, a scoreline of 9.19 beling the young sides’ dominance in the game.

It left players emotional, No.1 draftee Willem Duursma shedding tears as his side left the ground, and fans frustrated, a pain McQualter said he was also feeling keenly.

“I’m feeling all of that pain as well,” he told 7NEWS.

“We thought we had a great chance at winning the game yesterday, but we didn’t get it done.”

The loss takes McQualter’s record against his former team, where he was an assistant coach, to 0-4. However, the second-year coach called for more patience.

“More broadly, and this is hard for me to do in the thick of it, if we take a step back and look at our profile, particularly since round eight, we haven’t had a team with a profile like this for five or six years,” he said.

“So, as much as we want to win every game we play in, there is some growth that we are getting. We just need to keep believing in what we’re doing and keep working hard, and it’ll turn.”

Star forward Jake Waterman was one of the main culprits for misses in front of goal, kicking 2.6 and one set shot out on the full.

The 28-year-old’s goal accuracy this year is 41.7 per cent, well below his career average of 51.5 but McQualter says he is working hard to get it right.

“It’s been a big challenge,” he said.

“He’s been amazing at getting shots on goal and helping our team score but unfortunately for Jake and the other players on our team on Sunday, he wasn’t able to finish his work off.

“So, we have a lot of plans in place with jake we’re working on from a technical point of view and a metal point of view and he will continue to work at it.”

McQualter said he may turn to the WAFL for a boost against Collingwood this week after the side knocked off reigning premiers South Fremantle on Sunday to keep their hopes of a first finals appearance since 2019 alive.

“Yeah, we do (need to reward our WAFL team),” he said.

“It’s a great thing for our WAFL team to continually put up wins. That’s eight wins for the year now, and they’ve got themselves in contention for finals, which is terrific.

“Some guys are playing well there, so that will be something we look at for sure.”

It’s also that time of year when players’ careers are on the line, and with the Eagles having 51 listed players, they will need to be ruthless with their delistings in 2026.

But McQualter said the results of the club’s final three AFL games would not be the primary factor in those contract decisions.

“This time of the year, for every club, there are players that are out of contract, and we’ve got a large portion of those,” he said.

“So, those will be some decisions we make at the end of the year, but it’s not just about these final three games; it’s over a period of time”