WEST Coast picked up its second win of the 2024 AFL Women’s season last night after an at times hard fought 11 point win over the Western Bulldogs.

It was also the Eagles’ first win on the road for 2024, and coach Daisy Pearce was certainly happy about the outcome post match.

“Yeah all wins are good wins, but, good effort from the girls to be able to navigate the travel,” Pearce said.

“Coming over for a week on the road is a good opportunity to connect, and for a group that has a lot of fresh faces, both on field and off, it’s a great opportunity. But, the biggest part of it is coming over and having fun, so it started well tonight.

“I thought the effort to work through a really hot start from the Bulldogs and go two goals down again. Last week it took us to a quarter time to respond, but for them to be able to tighten up and kind of get it back going our way early in the quarter was a good result.”

Pearce agreed that the way the Eagles were able to win last night was a sign of the growing maturity within the cohort.

“Just their resilience and ability to kind of grit their teeth and find a way, I think, is something that we’ve been trying to improve,” she said. “They’re maturing, they’re competitive, their belief in themselves is growing.

“We’ve added a number of players that I think someone like Alison Drennan, who was outstanding tonight, started on the bench in a lot of the quarters, got stuck there for a bit longer than we would have liked at one stage, but still found plenty of the ball, and that just speaks to someone who’s able to come onto the ground, not get rattled by getting out of rotation or thinking about themselves and wanting to be out there because she’s a competitor and would like to be.

“So, someone leading the way like that, and then performing when they get out there is a good indicator of some of that maturity that is growing within, but we’ve kind of intentionally added as well.”

She also noted that said growing maturity was happening across the age cohorts of the team.

“A lot gets said about Charlie and Ella and Bella, young, really quality talent in our team,” Pearce said. “But the development of people like Beth Schilling, Zoe Wakfer down back, Jess Rentsch, who could play in a number of positions, but her versatility to play on different opponents in our backline, and just her preparedness to play her role is really exciting as well. So, it’s kind of happening across all the age cohorts, which is exciting and something that we want to continue to do.”