Eagles defend management of injured players

West Coast coach Adam Simpson has defended the decision to send Luke Shuey back on the field last week, declaring he always leaves injury calls up to medical staff.

Shuey is slated to miss the next four to five weeks after injuring his ankle and pulling up with a sore hamstring in the 40-point loss to Port Adelaide.

The 32-year-old suffered the ankle injury in the first term, but returned to the field and was only subbed off in the third quarter when it became too painful to continue.

Once Shuey cooled down, he noticed soreness in his hamstring - continuing a worrying trend of hamstring issues for the 242-game veteran.

Simpson said the hamstring tweak couldn't be blamed on the decision to send him back on the field with an ankle injury.

"He didn't do his hamstring coming back on the ground. That's probably misinterpreted," Simpson told reporters on Friday.

"It's a tendinopathy. It's not an incident. It's a consistent thing that makes it a challenge to play with. The ankle was the thing that subbed him out.

"When you do ankles like that, you can play through a bit of pain.

"It got to the point where he couldn't sustain it so we didn't want to keep jabbing it to play."

A number of Eagles players have returned to the field while nursing injuries this season - a common practice among clubs but one that comes with risks.

"That (sending players back on) is just done by the doctors, that's not my call," Simpson said. 

"There's no risks taken. It's just the doctor's call – whether it's concussion, ankle, shoulder, hamstring.

"Every game they've got to make a call."

West Coast will be aiming to snap a four-game losing run when they take on Carlton at Optus Stadium on Saturday night.

The Blues pulled a selection shock by naming Sam Docherty just two weeks after knee surgery that was initially expected to rule him out for up to six weeks.

"He keeps surprising me," Carlton coach Michael Voss said.

"His recovery powers are pretty impressive, but early in the week he was making some really good progress.

"He got back into running, jumped into training, had no affects and was able to complete full training.

"It seems a bit pointless to wait another week. He's well and truly fit and ready to go."

The Blues also welcome back Adam Saad (hamstring), while West Coast are boosted by the return of Shannon Hurn. 

Voss leapt to the defence of forward Harry McKay, whose wayward goalkicking has become a big talking point. 

McKay has kicked nine goals from 23 shots this season, including 1.2 in last week's loss to St Kilda.

"He didn't quite get the finish he was after but gee, he got the opportunities," Voss said.