INJURIES HURTING BUT NO EXCUSES FOR FALCONS

MISSING your No. 1 ruckman, most prolific ball winner, toughest enforcer and two important defenders would be tough for any team to cover and that's the case with West Perth right now, but coach Bill Monaghan isn’t looking for excuses after a 1-3 start. 

West Perth's season hasn’t started how it hoped with losses to the unbeaten South Fremantle and Subiaco, and the 2-1 East Fremantle in between a 44-point win over Perth at HBF Arena.

Dual Breckler Medal winning midfielder Shane Nelson hasn’t played yet this year to a fractured wrist and premiership defender Laine Rasmussen hasn’t made a league appearance while Kody Manning and Chris Keunen have not played since Round 2 and Joe Morrow was also out on Saturday.

None of Corey Chalmers, Brayden Antonio, Matt Fowler, Matthew Johnson and Matt Guadagnin have played yet in the league team in 2016 either.

On top of that, premiership defender Luke Tedesco is unavailable for selection this week against the Royals with Andrew Strijk also in doubt after having his leg dived into against East Fremantle on Saturday.

After Keunen suffered a fracture in his leg in a similar incident against Perth, there are fears Strijk might have suffered more damage than first thought as well.

That is a lot of talent to be on the sidelines and there's likely little relief on the horizon as West Perth prepares for a crucial Round 5 derby this Saturday against East Perth at Medibank Stadium.

Chalmers might be getting closer to pushing for selection but none of the other players on the sidelines will be available this week, and likely next week as well as the Falcons head to Steel Blue Oval to play Swan Districts.

"They are all getting closer to getting back because it's a week further down the track, but I'm not expecting anyone back this week. It's probably going to be Round 7 before any of them get back. Kody and Nelly will probably be the first two back around that time," Monaghan said.

"We play Round 8 and then have a bye Round 9 so I reckon Rasmussen, Morrow and Keunen should be back by about Round 10.

"The other thing is Brod Walton, who is the captain of our reserves, has done an ACL, Corey Chalmers is slowly coming back, Brayden Antonio has done an AC so he's out for pretty much the whole season. So it's not just at our top end, it's all the way through."

There's no question that having missing its best ruckman, midfielder, hard man, small defender and a host of other players capable of making an impact has been a factor in West Perth winning just one of the first four games of the season.

But Monaghan can't excuse anything short of 100 per cent effort or commitment to the game plan no matter the personnel on the field.

Particularly early in games where so far over the first four rounds West Perth have been outscored by a total of 68 points. They were able to come back and win against Perth, but not against the league's top three teams – Subiaco, South Fremantle and East Fremantle.

"It's having an impact, but we just have to try and find ways to be in games of footy and to close games out. We can dwell on that if we wish to and obviously we would prefer to have those players available, but we can only control who goes out on the park," he said.

"That doesn’t excuse players' energy levels and commitment early in the game not being good enough. Two weeks in-a-row I've had to get fairly cranky at quarter-time to try and change it. The players have the ability to do it and Subi jumped us before our second quarter was outstanding.

"East Fremantle jumped us and our second quarter was outstanding, Perth started well against us and we kicked the first two against South before they controlled the rest of the first quarter. We have the ability out there. I have to find the switch to get us going from the start.

"We are really struggling early in games so we are looking at what we do pre-game, what I'm doing with talking to the players and we need to find a way where we get out there, and throw it all on the line early.

"We think the season's far from lost and we'd love to have those other players back in and five or six of what is probably our top 10 players not playing has a significant bearing on our performances, but that's not the reason we are 1-3. We are 1-3 because we haven’t played good enough footy."

West Perth had up to 16 senior squad members unavailable last week against East Fremantle and Monaghan knows it's a delicate balance between blooding some youngsters to breathe life into the team, but also to be mindful of throwing them to the wolves before they are ready.

"We have a squad of about 60 and we only had one player miss playing on Saturday. We still think there's players in the reserves who can come in and help, but there's probably not as many as we though six weeks ago," Monaghan said.

"Batterham, King, Alexandre and Peirce are playing well, Moulton we think can play and Sam Rotham is another. It's just a matter of getting the mix right because a lot of them are young kids without a lot of experience and to bring them in when we aren’t in good form, we have to be careful to get the mix right.

"Whatever experience we can get on the park we have to try and keep on the park to make sure we are at our very best, but I'm really confident that we will bounce back to good form. In all the games we've played at least two good quarters so there's enough there to say we are close, but close isn’t good enough."