West Coast Eagles’ Reuben Ginbey continued to impress in otherwise dispiriting pre-season loss to Adelaide Crows

McGovern, one of the club’s few good players against the Crows with 25 disposals and 12 marks, said Ginbey had the makings of a 10-to-15 year player for the club.

“I am extremely excited about him,” McGovern said. “I have probably pumped him up a bit too much early on. The hype is there. He is going to be a great player for us. It was good to see him getting a run. He fitted in beautifully and hopefully he is going to be at this club for the next 10 to 15 years and keep doing that for us.”

Ginbey had 17 disposals, including 10 in contests, against Adelaide after missing the previous week’s match against Port Adelaide with a minor toe injury. His combination of size, speed and power were becoming more common among top end draftees, McGovern said.

“It is the modern day player really,” he continued. “The top 30 picks are the complete package. They are tall, good size, they are strong, extremely fit, good skills, almost ready made and that is what we have got there with Reuben, even Elijah Hewett has shown glimpses. It is exciting for us to have a kid come in like that.”

McGovern said the 59-point loss to Adelaide was “not ideal obviously” but had not put a dent in the club’s confidence heading into round one.

“We wanted to win. There were patches when there was a lot to like but there was a lot that we didn’t do well either,” he said. “I guess that is what pre-season is for, to nut a lot of the kinks out.”

Timid and indecisive ball movement was a characteristic of the loss as it had been throughout the club’s 2022 campaign. McGovern said the Eagles had “tried to” move the ball quicker at times but strong defence from the Crows and some poor execution had let them down.

“They picked a few off and a few were our skill errors from trying to get the ball moving a little bit,” he said. “They were really good – their contest and pressure was good all night. I think they will be right up there with those indicators throughout the year.

“We had a lot of skill errors throughout the night which cost us. We will work on them and everyone that had one isn’t trying to have one. Those things happen. We will try and get cleaner and we will work on that throughout the week.”

McGovern said the Eagles would review but not dwell on the loss.

“You can burrow right into them if you really want or you don’t need to look too deeply into them either if that is what you want,” he said. “We will take what we need to take out of it and the lessons to get better. We just want to keep getting better.

“It doesn’t dent the confidence too much. We still have the belief that we can perform at a high level. We have just got to fix a few things up and we have got a couple of weeks to do that.”