West Coast coach John Worsfold has defended his team's high-handball count against Hawthorn last week, saying it was a necessary tactic to try to break down the Hawks' rolling defensive zone.

The Eagles, who copped a 135-point thrashing from Geelong the week before, recorded an astounding 240 handballs compared to 158 kicks in their 57-point loss to the Hawks.

"We didn't cope with Geelong's defensive zone the previous week and we knew Hawthorn are probably the best team at doing that defensive zone all down the ground, so we went in with a plan to try to attack that," Worsfold told 6PR.

"Put it this way ... the previous week we were accused of not having the ball, I was quite happy to have it a bit more this week.

"It's just that classic one, if we would have kicked it out of the backline any earlier ... we would have turned it over and we might have been blown out of the water like we were against Geelong.

"I thought the tactic to try to run the ball past a big part of that zone was effective in a big part of the game.

"I couldn't have asked the players to do any more of what we asked them, and that was a great sign for us that our young players and our senior players went out with a new style that we wanted to have a go at and they gave it everything."

Midfielder Matt Priddis tallied a whopping 45 possessions, 30 of which were handballs.

Critics have suggested Priddis received too much easy ball but Worsfold thought otherwise.

"No one gives you the footy out there, you have to go out and win it," Worsfold said.

"Whether it's 35 or 45 possessions he does an enormous amount of work out there for us and brings other players into the game.

"He may not have looked like Greg Williams out there but we don't expect him to because we know he's not Greg Williams. You can't question his work ethic."

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