Star West Coast midfielder Elliott Yeo has addressed his explosive on-field spat with teammate Jeremy McGovern during Monday’s shock loss to the last-placed North Melbourne, insisting “we both want the best out of each other”.
The incident occurred in the second quarter of the Perth Stadium fixture, when a decision from McGovern to leave North Melbourne ruckman Todd Goldstein open on a wing prompted Yeo to unleash.
McGovern turned his back on Goldstein and jogged into the Eagles’ defensive 50, leaving the veteran Kangaroo to take an unpressured mark off a Jaidyn Stephenson kick. West Coast’s Tim Kelly then gave away a 50-metre free kick and Goldstein slotted the set shot.
McGovern’s decision to leave his opponent left Yeo seething, the dual All-Australian firing heated words, throwing his arms in the air and pointing his finger.
Two days after the Eagles fell to a third loss in succession in a 10-point defeat to the Roos, Yeo opened up on his feisty clash with McGovern.
“We’re both extremely passionate players, we both love to win games of football and we both want the best out of each other,” Yeo said on radio station 96FM.
“There’s two ways you can look at it: a lot of people might think it’s demonstrative but other people might think it’s great feedback. There’s obviously two sides to everything.
“I feel that Gov is one of those players who can take that criticism. We’ve both talked about it and moved on and we’ve both realised that we need to get better.”
The Eagles’ loss to the rebuilding Roos followed a 55-point thumping at the hands of the Western Bulldogs and a 92-point humiliation at the hands of the Swans.
The horrid run of form of Adam Simpson’s men has left some experts writing off West Coast’s flag aspirations, even in the event of the 2018 premiers scraping into the top eight.
“I hate losing and especially at home in front of our fans; it hurts that little bit more,” Yeo said.
“We are not in a good spot at the moment. The only way we can get out of it is through hard work. We’re going to get better, we are up for the fight.
“We’re probably not in the spot that we’d like to be confidence-wise.
“The only thing that we can do to change that is win games of footy and also to train extremely hard.”
Yeo is awaiting scans after injuring his ankle during the fourth quarter of the game against North Melbourne, placing him in doubt for Sunday’s match against Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.
“I had a scan yesterday so I will be finding out today. I’m walking around on it okay at the moment,” Yeo said.
“I’ll wait to see what the doctors say. I just tweaked my ankle a couple of times.”
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