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Captain Kennedy's fine audition

West Coast's Josh Kennedy believes the Eagles have plenty of captaincy candidates, despite doing his own chances little harm with an eight-goal haul yesterday.

Kennedy obliterated Gold Coast in attack, continuing his strong finish to 2014.

The Eagles rotated the captaincy between Kennedy, Matt Priddis, Eric Mackenzie and Shannon Hurn following Darren Glass' retirement. Scott Selwood's leadership skills are also highly rated, but injury prevented him from joining the rotation.

Kennedy said the only way to become the permanent leader was to be elected by the players.

"There's five or six of us in the leadership group and they're all really great fellas who lead in their own way," Kennedy said.

"Like every year we'll come to a vote just after Christmas time.

"Whoever the boys vote for will be the one to take the helm. If it is me, I'll be rapt. But no doubt whoever it is will do a great job.

"Coming into a club with Glassy as captain - who I've respected ever since I started playing footy and who was my favourite player over many years - for him to announce his retirement and slip in for a few games to take over has been fantastic.

"It's been a great honour."

Kennedy's leadership was even more important considering the Eagles were still coming to terms with not playing finals before yesterday's opening bounce.

The players met on Saturday night after watching Richmond beat Sydney to claim the final spot in the eight. Kennedy said they knew they had to still perform against the Suns.

"We were all pretty flat," Kennedy said. "We had a bit of a meeting after the game to make sure we were all on and could finish off the year strongly and get today done.

"But I didn't sleep too well.

"It was a bit annoying. You can't really rely on other teams. It was mainly our fault. We lost a few this year that we shouldn't have and that really cost us."

West Coast's potent forward line was on show in the last five games when they averaged 121 points.

Having averaged just 61 points in the previous four matches, Kennedy said the improvements were obvious.

"The way the boys are moving it from the half-back line and through the middle is great," he said. "The boys have been able to win the contested footy and get the ball out to someone in the clear.

"It makes it so much easier for us. The delivery has been fantastic in the last part of the year. We've been learning a lot and trying to get the basics right."