West Coast's AFL premiership defence looks to be well and truly back on track, the Eagles continuing their form resurgence with a 24.14 (158) to 9.17 (71) belting of an undermanned Western Bulldogs at Telstra Dome.

With midfielder Daniel Kerr in devastating touch, the Eagles controlled the game from the outset, skipping to a 44-point lead by half-time and then storming further away in the second half.

The final quarter turned into party time for West Coast against a dispirited opposition as they booted nine of the first 10 goals of the term to at one stage lead by 100 points.

After appearing to have the wobbles when they lost four of five games from rounds 11 to 15, they have roared back into form with last Saturday night's downing of Sydney at Subiaco and a demolition job against the Bulldogs.

The Dogs were hampered by a heavy injury list, with gun midfielder Scott West a late pre-game withdrawal with a groin injury, joining Chris Grant, Daniel Cross, Ryan Griffen, Mitch Hahn and Lindsay Gilbee on the sidelines.

Importantly, the magnificent midfield group that carried them to the past two grand finals was back near its brilliant best against the 'Dogs.

Kerr was superb, picking up 34 disposals and setting up his side's dominance by constantly tearing away from packs or receiving handballs to send the Eagles into attack.

It continues a rich vein of form, with Kerr having now had 30-plus disposal matches in his past four games, to turn around what had been a brief personal mid-season slump.

Skipper Chris Judd showed little sign of the groin problems that have kept him below his best in recent weeks to also be a strong contributor in the mauling.

And former captain Ben Cousins shrugged aside concerns that he would struggle to back up after his impressive comeback game last week with another fine performance despite being booed by the crowd whenever he touched the ball.

But the Eagles' dominance was due to more than just their stars, with the pressure they applied across the entire ground, through close checking and fierce tackling, wearing the Bulldogs into submission.

Eagles coach John Worsfold acknowledged the Bulldogs' injuries were a contributing factor, while applauding his own side's effort.

"I thought the Eagles boys just really stuck at what we were asking them to do and it was probably their most consistent four-quarter performance for the year," he said.

"It's nice to be able to win that as well as we did, knowing the Western Bulldogs were a bit undermanned with the injuries they copped over the week."

He said it was pleasing to follow up last weekend's win over Sydney with another strong performance, but said it was hard to assess whether it was his team's best performance of the season so far.

"That's a very hard thing to judge because every game is so different ... it depends on what you're looking at, in terms of kicking a big score that was great," he said.

The lack of space the Bulldogs were given through the midfield and in their forward zone caused the Bulldogs to regularly give the ball away heading into attack, with long ill-directed kicks often landing with West Coast defenders.

On numerous occasions, the Bulldogs could not even clear the ball from their own defence, with several Eagles' goals coming directly from 'Dogs' errors in the backlines.

It reached almost laughable proportions late in the third quarter, when at one stage the Bulldogs chipped the ball from side to side multiple times in defence because of a lack of options upfield, before giving it up to set up Eagle Brent Staker with his fourth goal.

Giant forward Quinten Lynch booted five, while leading small forward Mark LeCras kicked three.

Eade said that as well as those absentees, midfielder Adam Cooney had played despite having been on a drip before the game because of a virus, and his side had never been likely to win.

"I think that was always going to happen tonight," Eade said.

"I mean realistically with the difference in talent ... they had their strongest team and we had eight or nine out, like they did against Port Adelaide (in round 15) when they lost by 91 points.

"I thought that was a lot better effort than last week, for the inexperience, we had seven players who had played 20 games or less against an extremely talented team, I thought our effort (was acceptable), except for the first 20 minutes of the last quarter.

"Other than that, we just didn't take our chances, not to give ourselves a chance to win but at least to make it respectable."

The defeat would have rekindled memories for the Bulldogs of the 74-point belting they were handed by the Eagles at Subiaco in a semi-final last year, which ended their season and was the biggest thrashing they have copped under current coach Rodney Eade.

It hurt their percentage and leaves them with a struggle to make the finals, as they could slip out of the eight by the end of the round and face a huge clash with St Kilda at Telstra Dome next Friday night.

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