MELBOURNE coach Steven King believes star Kysaiah Pickett's early head-high hit on West Coast's Jake Waterman was a "pretty legitimate play on the ball".

A minute into proceedings, Waterman was working to gather a ground ball at the top of the Eagles' 50m arc as Pickett flew through and clipped the forward high. Waterman was awarded a free kick for the incident, and played out the game, ultimately kicking three goals from eight scores.

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"I thought he made a pretty legitimate play on the ball, and then watching it back again, I made sure I got to 'Kozzy' on the phone and let him know. I thought 'he's playing the ball there', and it's great to see Waterman get up and have 13 score involvements and have a big impact on the game," King said post-match.

"I was just reassuring (Pickett) to make sure he felt confident enough… When we saw the replay, I got the message (out) pretty quickly to 'Koz' that 'mate, you were making a play on the ball and you'll be fine'."

Pickett was held to a season-low 14 disposals, well covered by West Coast pair Brady Hough and Willem Duursma.

"I thought Brady Hough's job on Kozzy Pickett was unbelievable. I probably rate Kozzy as one of, if not the best player in the comp this year, and I thought 'Hoffy' and Willem Duursma, who also went to him for periods as well, I just thought their attention to detail on the task was elite," West Coast coach Andrew McQualter said.

Rather than leaving Pickett in the middle to fight through the tag all game, King opted to shift the magnets a little to discover what can be done in future when his star is being held, but remained steadfast that Pickett is "untaggable".

"I feel he's untaggable when he's in the zone, playing his way and the game's set up, and part of today was looking after 'Koz', putting him deep forward… we could have just stuck 'Koz' around it and let him fight through it a bit more, which he'd do, but we also want to know what we can do and what levers we can pull within a game to give the opposition different looks or destabilise them," King explained.

Captain Max Gawn also played largely as a key forward out of the goal square, after a late change saw tall swing player Daniel Turner withdrawn due to illness, which left recruit Max Heath to continue to carry plenty of the rucking load.

"When he heard (Turner) was sick, he came up to me saying 'I can play key back, I did at Sandy Dragons'," King said of Gawn with a laugh.

"I think he sees the opportunity and what it can do for him throughout this season and the future as well."

For McQualter, early turnovers cost the side heavily, leaving them to chase their tails for the remainder of the day.

"We just gave up turnovers we can't afford to against the Dees. The game's built on contests, we were minus 11 contests quarter one, we won it for the rest of the game. So, at the moment we're really disappointed to lose that game of footy, I thought we had a chance to win that game," McQualter said.

"We walk away disappointed we didn't get the job done, but there's some growth in our game again, and some things that we can look at that we're improving."

McQualter admitted that he has spent some time looking back at Brisbane's early days under Chris Fagan, where he was appointed as head coach in an especially low point in the club's history, to understand the balance between risk and reward in a rebuilding program.

"Some of his press conferences, it's fascinating what he talks about. (He) talks about Hugh McCluggage and he's just got to keep going after his kicks because that's how you become a better player, and we're not in too dissimilar a position to what Brisbane were when Fagan started," McQualter explained.

"So, we have to find a balance between what the right options are in offence, because we don't want to have turnovers (that) become really hard to defend, and I think we had a few of those particularly in the first quarter today, but we're going to keep letting guys grow and find their boundaries. And the more they play, the more confidence they'll get, the more they'll understand each other. So, we've got to be careful we don't put a muzzle on too quickly."

It has been a less positive outlook on the injury front for the Eagles, with veteran forward Jamie Cripps going down in the WAFL on Saturday with what the club expects is a serious knee injury, and young key defender Harry Edwards suffering a third concussion of the year in Sunday's loss to Melbourne.

"I'm really concerned for Harry. It's really sad and unfortunate that he wasn't able to play for use today, but it's bigger than that for Harry right now. He's in great spirits, for what it's work, he is walking around, and he was at halftime, so he's in a good spot, but he did fail his SCAT test so, (we) understand what that means, and he'll have another stint on the sidelines now, and our team will just ensure that we look after Harry first and foremost," McQualter said.

He is accepting that given Edwards' history of concussions, the AFL's panel may become a factor for the defender's playing future, having experienced the same with premiership defender Jeremy McGovern last year.