Mornings with Mark Duffield FULL SHOW! (03.08.2026)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Introducing Meta Glasses. You have questions, they've got answers.

**Paul Heath** (0:05)
Hey Meta, what's the capital of Peru?

**Mark Duffield** (0:08)
Lima.

**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:09)
How do you say, where's the restroom in Spanish?

**Mark Duffield** (0:12)
Dónde está el baño?

**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:14)
Hey Meta, is a hot dog a sandwich? Technically no.

**Mark Duffield** (0:18)
Spiritually, yes.

**Paul Heath** (0:20)
Hey Meta, what should I do with my life?

**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:23)
That's one of life's biggest questions.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:25)
What do you think? Ask anything with the new Meta Glasses.

**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:36)
A Lego set is a gift that always clicks and clicks.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:41)
Watch out!

**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:43)
And clicks. For kids who love adventure, choose a Lego set. A gift that always clicks.

**Mark Duffield** (0:50)
Hello everybody. Welcome to the SENWA Radio Studio. We're out here at Optus Stadium. It is a Monday morning in Perth.
Award-winning design, built to be loved forever. Sunny but showers developing in our Fair City today. A top of 23 degrees. Made in WA for WA. This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA. Let's go to events at the weekend. And West Coast took their second crack at Fellow Cellar Dweller Richmond for this season at the MCG yesterday. They got the same result as they did the first time around. That was an 11 point loss. It came about in a very different way though. More of the ball, more inside fifties. 9-19.
And at one point in the third quarter, three goals 17
So this is becoming a bit of a theme with the Eagles. And that is a lack of execution. We know that bad kicking is bad footy, but it is more frustrating when you win just about every phase of the game. Get the game on your terms and then you don't close the deal. There's a combination of factors at play here, and I suspect that some of the younger players are starting to look for the end of the season. Willem Dersma has had a big year, but the end of the year has gotten big on him now. And I think the emotion he showed at the end of the game was probably without knowing the inside story, probably a combination of frustration and fatigue. Jobe Shanahan is battling to have the same impact on the games that he was having earlier in the season. And he had moments yesterday, but he kicked poorly for goal. The 11-point loss will be incredibly disappointing for the Eagles fans. But it is an overwhelmingly reminder that this year has to be about improvement and development and where the next year is about the same thing is really going to depend on how much they get out of these last three games and then how much they can get out of their summer.
And I'll give you a couple of examples of even the good West Coast players still being incomplete and not the finished product. So Marcus Herbert has been a revelation since he came into the team out of the mid-season rookie draft. But he needs to learn to narrow his focus on delivering the ball to teammates better placed than him, not on whether he can take a bounce and whether he can dodge someone. He's very good with time and space. But the main aim of the exercise is to get the ball to someone in a better position than you. Harley Reid is having a great season. He was their best player again yesterday. He was a monster at stoppages. I will be stunned if he doesn't win West Coast best and ferries comfortably. And I'll be mildly surprised if he isn't in the All-Australian squad. But the next big step forward for Harley is to turn the decisive power he wields around stoppages into meaningful inside 50 entries pinpointing teammates and not just long bombs forward after fend offs. If two of the most potent weapons your team has are deep forward, like Jake Waterman and Job Shanahanah, you have to take the ball forward in a manner that helps them, not in a manner that gives their opponents a better look at the ball than they have. So Harley's made much progress this year, but there is still a significant step forward for him to take. He gets out the front of stoppage and he gets clear so often, and then he just bombs away. If Andrew McWalder can make him more surgical, a very good player will become a genuine match winner.
Across town, and Fremantle have now had the most successful home and away season in the club's history. So top two and a home qualifying final is now an absolute lock, and the minor premiership is all but a lock. The question is, does Justin Longmure now try and manage key players like Josh Tracy and Luke Jackson in the running to finals, or does he back the week's break for wild card weekend to get them fresh for finals? The Friday win over the Bulldogs was dure and scrappy, but it was impressive how the Dockers unpacked a completely different game plan thrown at them by the Dogs, something akin to the Uber flood that Luke Beveridge's predecessor Terry Wallace employed when he rolled the unbeaten Bombers in 2000