West Coast coach Andrew McQualter has revealed the club has turned to its sports psychologist to help the team prepare for Saturday's clash against Collingwood at the MCG, where more than 90,000 fans are expected.
The Eagles, who will play as Waalitj Marawar for Sir Doug Nicholls round, are set to face their biggest home-and-away crowd ever, with thousands of Magpies supporters expected to celebrate Scott Pendlebury's record-breaking 433rd game.
It will be a daunting task for McQualter's young side, with nine of the 23 players never having played at the MCG, let alone in front of such a large and passionate crowd.
The previous record home-and-away crowd for the Eagles was 62,957, which watched them play the Magpies at the MCG in round 13 of 2012.
McQualter said it was "business as usual" despite the massive build-up to the Saturday afternoon match.
"We've embraced the fact that it will be a big crowd. We've spoken about it, we've used our sports psychologist yesterday to speak about it with our players, what the environment will be like," he said.
"We've had some players play in big games, but a lot of our players haven't played in an MCG game of this crowd size so we've just talked through it but from a preparation point of view it's been exactly the same. It's going to be a great opportunity."
"It's exciting, it's an awesome opportunity. You've got to win big finals at the MCG, that's what our competition's about. We get a look at a big game at the 'G, some of our young players get their first taste of it and we can't wait."
The Eagles are coming off an upset 17-point win against Greater Western Sydney, built on a brilliant game from Harley Reid and strong tactical moves by McQualter.
One of those moves was sending defender Brady Hough to Giants star Finn Callaghan, with the 23-year-old restricting the hard-running midfielder to a season-low 19 touches, a week after he played a similar role on Narrm (Melbourne) gun Kysaiah Pickett.
Brownlow Medal favourite Nick Daicos is the obvious match-up for Hough, after he had 34 disposals and a goal in their last meeting, but tagging Pendlebury in his 433rd game is also an option.
"We've got a really clear plan and our job is to go out there and win this game of football," McQualter said.
"We'll do whatever it takes to win the game of football, he (Pendlebury) has been a good player this year but he's also surrounded by jets all around him."
"We'll work our way through it, finalise our plans probably today and look forward to the game on Saturday."
Asked about potentially tagging Daicos instead, McQualter said: "He's an exceptional player and tagged or not, he has a huge influence on every game so we know as a team we can't let him have time and space.
"So whether that's a full tag, whether that's a team mindset — if you give Nick Daicos time and space you're going to be in trouble."
