The West Australian’s Sports Editor Jackson Barrett takes a look at the big stories of each round in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The Good - Luke Parker

He’s not the first veteran to move behind the ball late in his career and become a general off half-back.

But Luke Parker’s shift to that role has been one of the best positional moves of this season.

The Sydney premiership player had already transformed himself from a bull of an inside midfielder to a chasing and goal-kicking half forward when he shifted to the Kangaroos before last season.

Now Alastair Clarkson has turned his game around again.

He cashed in on the move in the final quarter of their rollicking comeback win over Carlton on Good Friday.

When the Blues made the early move to send a player behind the footy to serve as a seventh defender, the Roos didn’t equal up those numbers. Instead, it left Parker as their own spare player behind the ball and he carved them up.

Parker had some crucial touches in the last quarter to drive his side forward as they marched in from behind. He finished the day with 20 disposals, 12 of which were kicks and six score involvements from the back-half.

The Bad - Collingwood

Why did Collingwood send Nick Daicos all the way to Brisbane, only for coach Craig McRae to then declare he wouldn’t back him being right to play?

Daicos was pulled out minutes before the bounce with a calf strain. Nothing we saw in the warm-up on Thursday night suggested he was anywhere near getting up.

It now leaves him in doubt for the clash with Fremantle at Gather Round on Friday night.

But it’s clear they could have handled this injury better and given him the best chance to play against the Dockers. They battled without him too, with no clear replacement in the midfield, particularly with Scott Pendlebury also on the sidelines.

It could prove a handy little win for Fremantle this week.

The Ugly - West Coast’s midfield

The ugly is obviously West Coast’s 128-point defeat to Sydney on Saturday night.

It was the only result that would put a pin through the well-founded optimism around the Eagles. If they lost by 10 goals, the sense around them would be so different as we start this week.

Instead there are fears around what could happen in clashes with Geelong at Gather Round and then Fremantle in the western derby across the next two weeks.

He’s only played three games for the club, but the player that left a glaring hole was the suspended Deven Robertson. The Eagles were completely and embarrassingly beaten in the midfield contest battle on Saturday night. The clearance count was 41 to 28 and Sydney post-clearance work and ability to have players spit forward with little to no pressure made the task for West Coast defenders impossible.

There was just no way to stem the bleeding.

No West Coast player laid more than four tackles and the three Eagles with the highest tackle count were forwards. Jack Graham has had 27 tackles this season (the fourth highest in the competition), but only three of those came at the weekend.

They missed Robertson and Elliot Yeo badly and needed more experienced players to step up.