West Coast coach Andrew McQualter coy on whether Eagles will tag Brisbane star Lachie Neale

West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says he’s reluctant to tag for Lachie Neale despite the Brisbane star being successfully shut out of the game last weekend.

Neale was restricted to only 10 disposals — an eight-year low — by James Jordon last weekend, with the Sydney tagger successfully putting the clamps on the two-time Brownlow medallist as the Swans fell just four points shy of an upset win.

31-year-old Neale has an incredible track record against the Eagles. After snaring three Glendinning-Allan medals in western derbies as a Docker, Neale has been instrumental in leading six wins from as many games as a Lion against West Coast, averaging 31 disposals and a goal in that time.

McQualter would not rule out sending a stopper to Neale, but warned Brisbane had multiple weapons in their premiership-winning midfield that could hurt them at the Gabba on Sunday.

“I’ve been coaching against Lachie Neale for almost 10 years, and I’ve been involved in teams who have tried to tag him seven or eight times... it’s the first time it’s really been successful at the weekend by James Jordon. He did a terrific job,” he said.

“We’re aware of how good Neale is, well have plans in place for sure for him but there’s also some pretty other good midfielders in that team.

“You go and tag one, someone else often gets away from you. We’ll have a think about it, we’ll discuss it as a match committee and we’ll have plans for both scenarios.”

West Coast are trying to bounce back from a smashing in their midfield in their 87-point defeat to Gold Coast at Optus Stadium on Sunday, having lost the clearance count 50-33.

McQualter denied the loss in the midfield was based on effort, instead pointing to a structural breakdown for their demolition in the engine room.

“It’s a tricky one, because I think every footballer tries as hard as they can but I think there was a bit of method within our effort last which which is what I’m talking about around the contest that we didn’t get right,” he said.

“I’m involved in that as well, we’ve gone to work on that this week, but to say they didn’t try, sometimes when you lose you actually try harder and you get more out of whack. And that’s kind of what happened to us last week.”

McQualter said after a team review he was confident they could turn around the midfield thrashing in just seven days.

“We’re confident we will put some things in our game, particularly around the contest, they were the biggest themes that came out of the game,” he said.

“Our contest work was down but there’s a bit more too, which I won’t delve into the detail of it and then our workrate wasn’t at the level we needed it to (be at).

“The things that we’ve reviewed, we’re confident we can fix straight away. Whether that means we win the game or win the contest, it doesn’t. But it gives us much more of a chance, which is what we’re going for.”