West Coast coach Andrew McQualter says Eagles co-captain Oscar Allen will remain in defence against Melbourne

Oscar Allen will remain in defence against Melbourne on Saturday night, with coach Andrew McQualter scoffing at a call from club legend Glen Jakovich for the co-captain to be dropped.

Allen, who will reach the 100-game milestone in the clash, played in the backline against Hawthorn in their 50-point defeat on Sunday.

Hawks forward Mabior Chol kicked three goals on Allen in the 50-point loss, but it hasn’t discouraged McQuater from sticking with the move, saying it is where he would “most likely play”.

“He’s really keen on playing back. He’s really keen on helping our team any way he can,” McQualter said.

“I know key forward is an incredibly hard position to play. You’re reliant on the game coming to you a little bit.”

Allen’s shift to the backline allowed All-Australian Jake Waterman to continue to build chemistry with improving key targets Jack Williams and Archer Reid, while he can support vice-captain Jeremy McGovern after the Eagles dropped Harry Edwards.

Eagles legend Glen Jakovich has called for Allen to be dropped to the WAFL because of form issues, something McQualter said he wouldn’t do.

“I don’t agree with it at all. Oscar’s a really good player, he’s a high-level AFL player,” he said.

“We know he can play at both ends of the ground, we know he’s not in the best form of his career right now. But Oscar is working as hard as anyone to get himself going on the football field and we’re going to continue to support him.”

It comes after Allen opened up on the mental toll of the fallout from his meeting with Hawks coach Sam Mitchell. Allen is a free agent at the end of this season.

Allen revealed on Thursday he had the feeling that “everyone hated me” after his catch-up with Mitchell became public.

“It was a pretty difficult month. I decided, with the club, to step away a couple of weeks ago – I just wasn’t handling it all, mentally, whatsoever,” he said on 94.5.

“I’m going a lot better now. It definitely was really tough, particularly when I love West Coast, I love the club, I love playing footy. I wasn’t able to do any of that well.

“Because of that, your identity as a footballer and a person kind of get merged, because playing footy is something I’ve loved to do since I was a kid, and my job was going poorly.”

Allen missed the Eagles’ two-point loss to Essendon late last month as a result and spent time away from the club as he tried to deal with the public pressure.

“What we’ve done the past couple of weeks is try to support Oscar as much as we can,” McQualter said.

“When he missed a game of football he wanted us to not speak about it and we granted his wishes because that was his mental health that we were talking about.

“We just did everything we did to support Oscar. He had a small break away which is what he needed. I think we forget these people are human, we chose to live our life publicly because that is the nature of our business but we all have emotions, we’re human.

“Oscar had a little break, we supported him in it. He came back to the football club, he’s in great spirits at the moment and we’ll continue to support him.”

McQualter revealed midfielder Tim Kelly would return to take on the Demons after missing the loss to the Hawks with a toe injury.