WEST Coast captain Chris Judd will spend less time on the ball in the last three home-and-away games in a bid to have him at his best for the finals.

Judd played in the forward line in West Coast's hard-fought 17-point victory over the Kangaroos at Telstra Dome yesterday, which dumped the Kangaroos to fifth with ladder leader Geelong their next opponent.

The Brownlow medallist has been struggling with a groin injury and has not trained for the past month. Yesterday, he managed only 11 possessions.

Coach John Worsfold said the club had sought a second opinion on Judd's injury over the weekend, which confirmed that they were correctly treating the injury.

Asked whether the move to play Judd in the forward line was strategic or a workload issue, Worsfold said it was "a bit of both".

"It's a little bit about how much work we can get out of him. I don't think he came off the ground too many times … so we got more ground time out of him. But he spent most of it forward and that will vary over different weeks," Worsfold said.

"I believe our doctors know what the injury is and they knew prior to this week. But we've had a second opinion over the weekend and we believe we've got a good grasp of what the injury is and the management of that and we'll work through that for the remainder of the year. We're confident that he will be able to play some good football later in the year."

The Eagles held off a committed Kangaroos unit that kept coming all game, but could not take their chances to put scoreboard pressure on West Coast. After hitting the front seven minutes into the third term, the Kangaroos surrendered the lead and then squandered four easy shots at goal, which allowed the Eagles to maintain at least a two-goal buffer.

Coach Dean Laidley, perhaps mindful of the need to keep his side buoyant given the must-win nature of its last three home and away matches in order to retain a chance of finishing in the top four, was effusive about his side's effort.

"Today was probably one of the best games of footy I've seen," Laidley said. "I thought it was terrific. Sure we didn't take our opportunities, and the coach more than anybody hurts to see them not get the reward for their effort.

"If we had have taken some of our opportunities … I just thought we just missed the goal or the opportunity to get the goal, and they're critical moments in games, and they were able to score.

"So we couldn't put a bit of pressure on them. We were coming at them but they kept answering the challenge and that's why they are a very good football side.

"I thought (Adam) Simpson, (Shannon) Grant, (Jess) Sinclair, and Boomer (Brent Harvey) was good but he probably wasn't as good as he'd been. And they're our older guys that probably didn't have the days they would have liked. But all our younger guys were really good in those pressure situations."

West Coast's Andrew Embley will have scans today on a hamstring injury while Quinten Lynch was reported for charging Jesse Smith.