Footy star drops 'pathetic' tag as team hits AFL all-time low (2025)

Premiership-winning Richmond star Liam Baker has gone from the penthouse to the outhouse at the West Coast Eagles and has used a one-word response to vent his frustrations at his new club.

The Eagles remain winless after losing the contested possession count by 69 and the inside-50 count by 38 in a dire display for first-year coach Andrew McQualter.

Baker experienced only two 10-goal losses in his first 100 games with Richmond, where he played a supporting role behind seasoned premiership stars.

In contrast, his first five games with West Coast have included three heavy defeats of over 60 points.

Saturday's loss to Carlton was particularly grim, with West Coast recording a historically low contested ball count of just 77 - the lowest ever recorded by any team since the stat started being recorded.

'It's pathetic, really,' Baker fumed after the game.

It has become a recurring theme for Baker and West Coast, with the former Tiger admitted he was stunned by the club's lack of fight after its round one loss to Gold Coast.

'I'm still in a bit of shock really,' the former Richmond player said at the time.

'I expected more, so did the players, so did our fans.

'The way that we couldn't really swing momentum our way, pretty much at all during the whole game is the most disappointing thing.

At the centre of the pressure being applied to the Eagles is young star Harley Reid.

Reid was selected as the number one pick in the 2023 AFL Draft by the West Coast Eagles, a decision made after the club resisted multiple trade offers to secure the highly touted Victorian midfielder . Since joining the Eagles, Reid has faced immense pressure and scrutiny.

Essendon wingman Xavier Duursma has come to the defence of Harley Reid, saying the scrutiny on the 19-year-old is 'pretty unfair' and that he's being held to an unreasonably high standard.

Duursma, whose sister Yasmin plays for Carlton in the AFLW and is currently dating Reid, said he's had the chance to get to know him personally and believes the pressure on the young star goes beyond what's fair for someone so early in their career.

'There is a lot of pressure that comes with being so highly touted and so talented as Harley is,' Duursma told 3AW.

'But at the same time, I think there's also some pretty unfair comments around him and his actions and things like that.

'He's only a 19-year-old kid and he's learning as he's going and he's going to be a superstar of the competition and I think to have incredibly high standards of a teenager, and he is an incredibly high standards person and player, but I think at the same time there's been some pretty unfair criticisms of him.

'At the same time, that is part of the job and you've got to block it out and do our jobs.'

Meanwhile McQualter said the young side needed to start learning lessons from its string of poor results - and fast.

'We had an incredibly young midfield and they had a very experienced midfield - and we've got to learn a lot,' McQualter said.

'Clearly, contested ball at minus-60 is not a level where we are ever going to be able to compete.

'We could easily close the game down and play slow and wide and protect ourselves, put numbers behind the ball.

'But I am not sure that is the right way to teach people how to play.

'I am not sure it's a sustainable model of becoming a winning team ... we're not going to become a short-term solution club.'

West Coast EaglesCarlton Blues

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