West Coast Eagles coach Adam Simpson says injury crisis is simply bad luck as nightmare summer continues

West Coast believe they have simply been struck by a shocking run of luck and there is little they could have done to avoid the pre-season injury meltdown that has left them struggling to piece together a competitive side for round one. As Elliot Yeo, Dom Sheed and first-round draft pick Campbell Chesser joined the casualty list with ankle injuries after Friday night’s disastrous practice game mauling from Fremantle, coach Adam Simpson ruled out any concerns over their training surface at Mineral Resources Park where the game was played. “We’ve been training on this ground for three or four months. To get three in a quarter and a half, it’s hard to put your finger on it,” Simpson said. “The ground’s Clegg readings were really good and we water it well. So I don’t think we can blame the ground. “I don’t think we can blame anyone. I think it’s just unfortunate luck at the moment. “It’s not a heap of soft tissue injuries, or something (wrong) that we’re doing in the gym. It’s just these collision injuries that happen in football and we’ve just got a cluster at the moment. “We’re having a bad run. It hasn’t happened to us for a long period of time, the amount of injuries we’ve had.” It comes as the Eagles have been heavily backed by WA punters to take out this season’s wooden spoon, with their price slashed from $41 to $15 with TABtouch on the back of their horror summer. The Dockers are instead all the rage, with their opening premiership quote of $34 crunched into $26 as the second-best backed team to win the flag behind Melbourne. Fremantle’s top-eight price has been cut from $3.25 into $2.55, with West Coast paying $2.35 to make the finals. The Dockers are planning to recall a host of stars for next Sunday’s pre-season rematch at Fremantle Oval, with Nat Fyfe, David Mundy, Sean Darcy, Luke Ryan and Michael Walters set to fill a near full-strength team. The Eagles are sweating on scans to confirm the severity of the ankle injuries for Yeo, Sheed and Chesser. In a worrying sign, Yeo’s ice pack was placed high and on the outside of his leg in an indication of a possible ankle syndesmosis injury. Simpson said the latest injuries “don’t look great” but the club was holding out hope they weren’t serious. Ruckman Nic Naitanui and midfielder Tim Kelly could be asked to hold the Eagles’ midfield together in the early rounds until reinforcements arrive. West Coast’s start to the season – which features fixtures against last year’s bottom three teams in the opening month – had loomed as enticing but the Eagles now have their backs to the wall. Any COVID outbreak before the season would likely ensure they would have to rely on top-up players against Gold Coast in round one, given numbers of fit and available players are already under severe pressure. Simpson said regardless of the injury issues, West Coast had a host of issues to fix after the 97-point flogging. “The synergy of the team is the difficult part. But outside of that, we can all work on something,” he said. “We need to get better at a lot of areas with the way we play, the contest in particular in the first quarter, first half really, was really disappointing. “And then the method behind that. Once you lose that much field position through that, you’re on the back foot.”