West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says he may deploy Oscar Allen in defence for next week’s daunting road trip to face GWS, as the Eagles look to breathe life into their co-captain and cover the expected loss of Jeremy McGovern.

McQualter is facing some difficult decisions with his key defenders early in the season in the wake of Tom Barrass’ departure at the end of last year. McGovern injured his groin in the third term of Sunday’s western derby loss, after Harry Edwards had been tactically subbed out of the game minutes earlier.

It forced Allen into a defensive switch down the final stretch of the derby - a move that could be extended into next week ahead of a challenging match-up with Coleman medallist Jesse Hogan and the Giants’ potent forward line.

“I spoke to Oscar about that at the very start of pre-season,” McQualter said of the potential for him to be switched into defence.

“We knew we were slightly thin with key backs, but he’s played a little bit of key back in his career as well so it’s an option.

“We’ll just have to wait and see where it goes and match-ups and who we’re playing.”

Allen had struggled in attack before he went down back, with the spearhead scoreless from only one disposal as Fremantle’s Alex Pearce got the better of him.

It leaves Allen with a tally of just 3.1 from his opening three matches as he struggles to recapture the lofty heights of his 53-goal campaign from 2023.

“It can be the life of a key forward sometimes. It’s not an easy position to play,” McQualter said.

“We’ve got to improve our supply but we also need to keep working on our keys and smalls to provide contest ahead of the ball.”

McQualter has lamented his side’s execution while also conceding Fremantle star Caleb Serong was simply too good in the 38-point derby defeat.

The Eagles were beaten at the clearances 40-25, contested possessions 123-108 and inside 50s 65-37, with the coach saying his side didn’t get any of the phases in their game right in their third defeat to start the season.

“Probably the thing that hurt us the most was our ball use, just the amount of errors at times uncontested errors,” he said.

“They hurt your front half game, and they also fuel the opposition’s front half game. That was a bit of the theme of today.

“And our ability at times to win contest ahead of the ball or when we’re in offence, we just struggled. That’s a bad combination when you’re losing clearance and then stuck in the back half, that’s a bit of a theme for us at the moment unfortunately.”

Dockers star Serong was the catalyst behind the win for Fremantle, continuing his derby domination with a record-equalling fourth Glendinning-Allan Medal from only nine games.

A lot of talk leading into the game was whether the Eagles would send a tagger to the dual All-Australian but in the end they could not contain Serong, who finished with 35 disposals, 10 clearances and 498m gained.

McQualter said West Coast tried to restrict Serong but the Dockers vice-captain was just too good.

“We had a few plans, he’s pretty good, he’s hard to stop,” he said.

“We certainly tried to get him done at stoppage for most of the day but unfortunately a combination of a little bit of our method around there and he just beat us at times, it’s what good players do.”