West Coast's COVID-19 chaos isn't an excuse for an embarrassing AFL loss to Sydney, captain Luke Shuey says.
Shuey says Eagles fans deserve better than watching their side slip 56-0 behind Sydney in a what would eventually be a 63-point loss.
"We have spoken this week about once you lace up the boots on game day, you step across the white line, there's no excuses for poor performance," Shuey said on Tuesday.
"We have been really disappointed with what we have dished up and embarrassed.
"We feel bad for the thousands of people that came out to watch us play on Friday night and all around the state.
"Our supporter base deserve to see a better outing than that."
But Shuey said the heavy loss evidenced the cracks in West Coast's playing ranks from frequent COVID-19 related issues.
"To be able to field the same 22 or 23 (players) every week for a couple of weeks in a row would be nice," he said.
"We have only had two or three who have played five (games) in a row so fingers-crossed we get a bit of luck on that side of things.
"We are searching for synergy as a group to be honest ... what have we played all season, 40 players.
"There's probably not too many guys who have played a lot of footy together.
"And that probably showed on Friday night against a side who are really well drilled and really well connected on field, it was probably made a lot more obvious than we would have liked."
Shuey and fellow linchpins Trent Kelly, Elliot Yeo and Jamie Cripps all returned to action in Friday night's horror show.
But skipper Shuey, who played his first game of the season after hamstring problems, said selectors had little choice but to recall the underdone quartet.
"I don't think in these sort of things we have much of a choice given our payer availability," he said.
"I'm looking at those other three ... and there's no way I don't want them not to play for our footy club.
"So it's a tough one and we have been dealing with this sort of thing all year, bringing in guys who are underdone potentially.
"It probably gets exposed against a quality footy side like Sydney a bit more than what it has over the first four weeks.
"We were never going to bring it altogether straight away but the quicker we can get going and the quicker we can form synergy as a 22 on-field, the better off we are going to be."
