West Coast midfielder Scott Selwood believes the Eagles will benefit from Saturday night’s 75-point loss to Geelong at Simonds Stadium.

The Cats were ruthless against the Eagles, giving them a firsthand view at why they have won three premierships in the last eight years.

“You learn a lot, you learn about what the great teams do to be successful and their players and how they run defensively and offensively,” Selwood said.

“And I thought we lacked that tonight, whether it was through inexperience or just tiredness, I am not too sure.

“I think we were just beaten by a side that was just way too good for us in the end.

“They beat us in a lot of areas and it’s a great learning curve for our team.”

Leading up to the match, the Eagles’ injury list grew as the week went on.

The names on that injury list include captain Darren Glass, Shannon Hurn, Mark Le Cras, Luke Shuey and Chris Masten.

Then, on the night of the match things didn’t improve, with midfielder Matt Rosa a late withdrawal due to illness.

There is no doubt that the injury list, featuring many of the best players from past matches, hurt the Eagles on the scoreboard and in most areas.

Selwood agreed the absence of several key players and leaders made life tough, but wasn’t prepared to blame that for the loss.

“We were a bit undermanned, but that’s no excuse for what we served up,” said the Eagles midfielder who racked up 23 disposals in the loss.

“I thought out effort was okay, we thought we dropped off a little bit in the second quarter, the first quarter we almost won.

“We brought numbers up to the contested and they were just too good for us and they beat us at the contest and then they had the outside run.

“The effort was right from the boys, unfortunately we were just a little bit undermanned.”

Next Saturday night the Eagles host the in-form Port Adelaide at home at Patersons Stadium and Selwood said he expects his side to bounce back.

West Coast is confident of several key players returning from injury for the round five clash at home.

“We get about four or five guys back next week, the only one we’ll probably be missing in Mark LeCras, so we’ll come back in with a pretty strong side,” he said.

“We’ll stand up next week and learn from it and respond.”