West Coast tagger Patrick McGinnity says he's learnt to keep his mouth shut following his controversial sledge against Melbourne's Ricky Petterd last month.

McGinnity was handed a one-match AFL suspension and ordered to undergo counselling after it was revealed he threatened to rape Petterd's mother during a misguided attempt to put the Demons forward off his game.

The crude nature of the sledge drew widespread condemnation, and McGinnity revealed he would now rely on his on-field actions to halt opponents rather than trying to mess with their heads via words.

"I learnt to keep my mouth shut," McGinnity said of the incident.

"That was just something that happened and I've put it behind me now and I'm pretty keen to move on and get on with my footy.

"I know that something like that would never happen again.

"It's not really an issue (holding back on the sledging now), it's just footy so if I can beat them by playing footy that's what I want to do."

McGinnity made his finals debut as a substitute in last Saturday's loss to Collingwood after being handed a late call-up to replace injured midfielder Daniel Kerr.

But with Kerr almost certain to return for Saturday night's semi-final against Carlton at Patersons Stadium, McGinnity faces a stiff battle to retain his spot.

McGinnity hopes the Blues' wealth of small forwards and prolific midfielders could sway coach John Worsfold to stick with him for another week.

Meanwhile, Eagles vice-captain Beau Waters has urged midfielder Luke Shuey not to be discouraged by his performance against the Magpies.

Although Shuey got run down from behind three times, the 21-year-old was still one of the Eagles' better performers, tallying 18 possessions and laying seven tackles in the club's 20-point loss to the defending premiers.

"I think Luke will learn from that," Waters said.

"I think he did so many great things.

"If you run the risk of highlighting a few of the things that didn't come off, then you take away from the instinctive footy that he plays.

"I think that's why he's performed so well this year - he's played on instinct.

"He's still been very driven by the structures and the team performance, but he's also played with flair and added something a bit different.

"Players are very aware of what happens during a game and they're very self actualising in that they understand what they did and didn't do well.

"Deliberately taking them aside (to talk about their mistakes) isn't necessarily what we're about."

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