IT WAS not so much the 50-point loss that concerned West Coast Eagles coach John Worsfold, as it was Hawthorn's dominance in the inside 50 count following his side's second consecutive defeat to start the season.

"The inside 50s again, that was the difference," he said after the match.

"Their ability to win the footy and go forward and get it inside 50 compared to ours was far superior."

After Fremantle managed 23 more entries than the Eagles in their 28-point derby loss in round one, Hawthorn managed 25 more side in round two.

"I looked at some of the figures for the game and things looked pretty good for us other than the fact we only went inside 50 less than 40 times again, like we did in round one," Worsfold said.

He was uncertain whether it was just midfield issues, citing run from half-back and the effort from his half-forwards to push up and win the ball as other reasons for the deficiency.

"That's the number one thing we need to be better at - we need to match the opposition for inside 50s.

"We used to aim to win them. At the moment I'll be happy to match them.

"But giving a team 20-odd more inside 50s; you can try as hard as you want, you're going to struggle to match them."

Asked if the tackle count and intensity was another issue, Worsfold was able to pinpoint the issue more definitively.

"I think we had 83 tackles against Fremantle and we had the same result. So tackling is not a just a stat you look at and say, 'Their intensity is up'."

West Coast laid just 53 tackles against Hawthorn.

"They're still getting handballs to a teammate too easily, so we don't really interrupt their chain of possession with a tackle. There are areas we think we can address there for sure."

That was reflected in the work of Hawthorn's two leading ball winners, Sam Mitchell and Grant Birchall. Both had 30-plus possessions, but had 35 handball receives between them, and as a result were hugely influential through the middle of the ground.
 
Worsfold was not tempted to tag Mitchell despite his performance.

"He's such a good player, but overall we were trying other things to change the momentum of the game. And it wasn't necessarily just what Sam was doing that was going to make the biggest impact for us."