West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says it would be “unfair” to leave the responsibility of restricting North Melbourne spearhead Nick Larkey to one player as he prepares for life without Reuben Ginbey for the first time in his tenure.
Stopping the Kangaroos skipper looms as pivotal for the Eagles, who are wary of a response from Alastair Clarkson’s side after they were belted by 124 points at the hands of Fremantle in Bunbury.
Larkey has not been in great form, having kicked only five goals from his past five games, but he has a strong record against the Eagles.
The 28-year-old has kicked more goals against West Coast than any other team, with 31 in 10 previous meetings, including a game-high six in their round two meeting this year.
Larkey has been stopped previously by McQualter, with Harry Edwards holding him goalless in Bunbury last year in arguably the 200cm defender’s best game of his career.
But both All-Australian contender Ginbey (quad) and Edwards (concussion) will be unavailable against the Kangaroos when they meet at Optus Stadium on Saturday afternoon, leaving McQualter with no obvious match-up.
“He’s a good player, he kicks a lot of goals — there’s no question about that,” McQualter said of Larkey.
“They’re one of the best teams at marks inside 50 as well. It’s going to be unfair just to put it on one person. It’s going to be a team effort and a system defense that will hopefully be able to control him.”
While the Eagles are set to be without Ginbey until at least round 23, there is positive news for Edwards, with the 25-year-old aiming to play in the latter half of the season.
Edwards’ long-term future was up in the air after he sustained a third concussion in 71 days early in West Coast’s round nine defeat to Melbourne at Marvel Stadium, but he’s trained in recent weeks with hopes he could feature again in 2026.
“We don’t have much further to report, but we are hopeful of that (he’ll play again this year). He’s still progressing through his protocols, and hopefully he can play some footy towards the end of the year,” McQualter said.
“He obviously had a pretty rough trot there. I think he’s played three quarters of footy this year or something like that.
“So that’s unfortunate, but he’s in good spirits at the moment. You’ve seen him out on the training track, and he’s working his way through it, so hopefully we will see him again soon.”
The Eagles are $2.20 underdogs with TABTouch heading into the game despite the Kangaroos being belted last weekend.
McQualter said the Roos’ history showed a strong response loomed, having recently beaten Gold Coast a week after a 68-point defeat to Adelaide.
“We’ve done a little bit of research around every time they’ve had a loss this year, and maybe a bad loss, the way they’ve turned up the next week has been really quite fierce,“ he said.
“That’s what our expectation is. Every player has pride in performance and team, and I’m sure they’d be disappointed with their game last week. The expectation is we’ll get a red-hot Kangaroos turn up on Saturday afternoon.”
