WAALITJ Marawar coach Andrew McQualter was left "incredibly proud" of his players after Sunday night's maiden win, with the Eagles channelling their emotions into a spirited performance against Euro-Yroke that served as a tribute to premiership player Adam Selwood.
An emotional McQualter said the Eagles had been asked on Sunday to play in the manner of Selwood, who died on Saturday morning at the age of 41, just three months after his identical twin and former AFL player Troy Selwood died.
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With players and staff across the club hurting, the team produced its best performance of the season and snapped an 11-game losing run, delivering relentless pressure across the ground and standing up in big moments to seal a 28-point win.
"It's been one of the most emotional periods of my life that I've been through it, and I'm sure for many people at the football club it's just an incredibly challenging and sad time," McQualter said, paying his respects to the Selwood family.
"Adam had a huge influence at our football club and impacted many people that still work at our football club today.
"I just thought the way our players represented our football club today was something that I am, and we are, incredibly proud of in challenging circumstances.
"When we got here today, we just asked people to play in the right spirit and put their emotions into being a great teammate like Adam was, and we got the performance we got."
McQualter said Sunday's win was the Eagles' best pressure performance of the season, but it had come after a month of building form that included two-point losses against Essendon and Richmond.
The Eagles built their lead at each change through the first three quarters at Optus Stadium before a final-term challenge from the Saints, with McQualter thrilled with his players' ability to stand up late in key moments.
"We've been in winnable positions a couple of times this year and we spoke about it during the week about leaning into those moments and about not being scared of winning," he said.
"Clearly it's been a challenge for us this year, but we thought people owned their moments in the last quarter, which was really important.
"We want to live in the moments where we have chances to win all the time, and there's absolutely a skill in being able to win when the game's tight and it's at its most pressure and 50,000 people are screaming at you.
"So it was great reward for our players, and we'll look to fuel that and use what we learned in that last quarter from a winning perspective during the week."
McQualter highlighted the impact of defender-turned-midfielder Brady Hough, who had a team-high 24 disposals and kicked the first goal of his career in a standout performance.
"I've been at 'Houghy' all year to kick a goal. Every single training, I'm stirring him up," the coach said.
"I think you can see the players the way they celebrated 'Houghy'. He's an incredibly popular member of our team, but I'd made it clear he hadn't kicked an AFL goal for a while. So that's why they celebrated so hard.
"I think he's really growing in the role. He's been a wonderful defender for this footy club for his period of time here, but we think he's got more scope in his game.
"We know that at any time we can move him back and he'll still be able to contribute to our team. But yeah, I think the future is very exciting for 'Houghy' through the midfield."
Euro-Yroke coach Ross Lyon said the Saints were concerned about midfielder Jack Macrae and would send the clearance star for scans after he copped a heavy knee to the back during Sunday's game.
On the team's fifth loss in six games, the coach said his side had not handled the Eagles' increased pressure and repeatedly turned the ball over in dangerous positions in their opponents' forward half.
"We're not a team that just rolls out and wins … we know we've had some good wins, but we have to work really hard, and our good players have to play really well," Lyon said.
"We want to win, and we want to win lots of games, but it's a very tenuous grip we have on wins and losses. We need to be at our best. We need availability.
"We had an expectation to bring great effort and system, but it used to be our strength, and for whatever reason, a bit of personnel change, and we're just not handling it and getting the ball out of our back half, wet or dry, consistently."
