The West Coast Eagles have qualified for next Saturday night’s AFL pre-season cup final in Adelaide against the Crows after a 33-point win over St Kilda in Perth.

Despite St Kilda fielding a near full-strength team and West Coast missing up to eight of their first choice 18, it was the Eagles who handled the hot conditions the better and ran out convincing 1.10.16 (85) to 0.7.10 (52) winners.

The temperature was in excess of 35C in Perth when the game started and clearly the Eagles had all summer to prepare.

West Coast were missing captain Darren Glass, veteran Andrew Embley, defender Shannon Hurn, centre half-forward Josh Kennedy, emerging midfielder Luke Shuey and the versatile Quinten Lynch.

After a relatively even first half with the Eagles leading by nine points at the main break, they blew the game open with four goals and a nine-pointer to nil in the third quarter to set up the win.

Nic Naitanui had two massive marks in the ruck for the Eagles on his way to 10 disposals, 15 hit outs and five marks (four contested).

His ruck partner Dean Cox spent most of the game up forward and was best afield with 17 possessions, eight marks, 13 hit outs and two goals.

Scott Selwood picked up 23 touches, Beau Waters 20, Chris Masten 19, Daniel Kerr 18 and Matt Priddis 17.

It was a good hit-out for St Kilda after last weekend’s debacle when Essendon failed to turn up at flood-threatened Wangaratta.

Adam Schneider worked tirelessly for 17 possessions and two goals.

Leigh Montagna had 19 disposals, Stephen Milne 16, Jamie Cripps 14, Brendon Goddard 14 and Lenny Hayes 14.

The Eagles did lose key defender Eric MacKenzie during the third quarter with a freak accident when he smothered a Rhys Stanley kick with his head and was knocked unconscious.

He appeared to be unharmed aside from a nasty headache.

West Coast coach John Worsfold acknowledged it was a good bonus for his team to earn the right to contest the grand final, but was more pleased with the way they got their way there with the win over St Kilda.

“My reaction is probably around the performance and I thought it was really impressive across a lot of areas,” Worsfold said.

“That’s what we were looking at measuring. The fact that the players have earned the opportunity of playing in a NAB Cup grand final is excellent, but it’s more about what we were aiming to get out of the game and we were really pleased with that.”

St Kilda coach Scott Watters said it felt like a first hit-out of the year for his team following last week’s non-appearance by Essendon and he was looking for a full dress rehearsal for the season proper on Friday against Collingwood at Visy Park.

“It was a start for us,” he said.

“There were obviously a lot of areas to still improve and we are desperately in need of getting some match conditioning in and I think that showed.”