EXPERIENCED West Coast utility David Wirrpanda believes the Eagles are just around the corner from another surge up the AFL ladder.

The 2006 premiership player was upbeat about the Eagles' prospects after Saturday night's 46-point loss to Brisbane.

He said while injuries have helped to cruel the current season, the silver lining was the extra exposure the younger brigade was getting.

That included defender Eric Mackenzie, who spent the night on Lion spearhead Daniel Bradshaw and kept him to four goals despite a flood of opportunities.

“We want to keep consistently playing the young blokes and they're doing a brilliant job considering the injuries in our team,” Wirrpanda said.

“We're just around the corner form something big, whether it's a year or another two years we're going to be around the mark and that's just part and parcel of footy.

“It never stays the same, if you could keep the same group like ’05 and ’06 it'd be all good but that's just the world of sport.”

Wirrpanda said the opportunity for the youngsters to play on the big names of the competition would benefit the Eagles in the near future.

“I was in exactly the same shoes in '96 and ’97, that's how you groom yourself into playing a regular position and playing on good players which is important,” he said.

“Coming from one of the senior players who has been around for a while now, just stick to your guns and the supporters should stick with us.”

The 205-game Eagles stalwart said the playing group made a commitment to themselves to turn the corner after last weekend's humiliating 77-point loss to Richmond.

“(It was) very disappointing but I thought we fought it out well, considering they kicked five goals in eight or nine minutes (at the end of the second quarter).

“We wanted to make sure that it didn't happen to us like last week and we wanted to make sure we came out and put up a fight.”

Wirrpanda had 17 possessions of his own in a busy display and gave his opponents plenty of praise.

“You've just got to give Brisbane credit, they've got a strong, disciplined team and it was good for most of our younger blokes to play them.

“They're (Brisbane) around the mark with some quality forwards that are hard to match up so they're going to give a lot of teams over the next six weeks a lot of grief.”