What on earth has happened to West Coast Eagles?

One of few in that cohort, new co-captain Oscar Allen, is on the sidelines with a knee injury.

Simpson made the same point after the Bulldogs defeat. Extraordinarily, Saturday’s team featured six residual premiership players. Proven stars Jeremy McGovern, Elliot Yeo and Kelly all played well, and youngsters at least were getting game time, but there is a yawning gap in the list. “We’re in a build, and it’ll take time, and we’ll look at some positives,” Simpson said. “But we’ve got to be better than that.”

West Coast carried themselves like a big, rich, powerful club from day dot, and quickly became one. A West Australian editorial last year said that coach of the Eagles was the second most important job in the state, next to the premier.

They’ve risen and fallen mercurially, but their underpinnings have remained formidably strong. Even now, their home crowds are the fifth biggest in the competition on average, and only Collingwood have more members.

It means that they’re a club that can ride out the bad times without the existential angst of others. But it also masks the debilitation of the worst slump in the club’s history.

“West Coast supporters have always been magnificent,” said Sumich. “They’re probably paying the top membership dollar going around. They stick by them. But the crowds are starting to dwindle. That’s probably going to be the telling thing in the next 12 months or so.”

Twelve months ago, after a 107-point crushing by Carlton, Sumich called for changes. On Tuesday, he reiterated this. “Enough’s enough,” he said. “Everyone’s had enough of the results. It’s been nearly three years. The question needs to be asked of the match committee and the board: why have you fallen so far behind?”

He said COVID and a plague of injuries were not excuses because every club had to deal with them. He said Simpson was a proven and successful coach, with a premiership to his name, but no-one could be absolved of blame. “It’s not Adam’s fault, wholly and solely, what’s going on,” Sumich said. “The board and the club have to take some of the blame. It gets beyond individuals sometimes.”

Simpson, who is contracted until the end of next year, was stoic on Sunday. “This is my life. This is what we do. This is how we live,” he said. “You need to have resilience.

“We think longer term we’re heading in the right direction. Short term, we want to see some improvement. We want to be better than today.” He took a sliver of consolation from the inside 50 count, 51 apiece. “If we get 51 inside 50s a week for the rest of the year, we’ll win some games,” he said.

The Eagles opted to remain in Melbourne after Sunday’s humbling, hoping it would act as a circuit-breaker before they move on to Adelaide to play Sydney in Gather Round on Saturday.

In the immediate future, Sumich asks only one thing. “Please, please, score some goals,” said the man who kicked 514 of them. “If you’re going to get beaten by 10 or 12 goals – which they are – get beaten with the oppo kicking 25 and you kicking 12 or 13. You walk away as a spectator thinking, that wasn’t bad.

“North aren’t winning, but they’re kicking 10-plus goals. You can see their midfield going well. You can see Larkey and Zurhaar and the young kids. You can walk away thinking, there’s something going forward. With three goals, what do you walk away with?”