The Eagles, runners-up to Hawthorn last season, were blown out of the finals by 47 points on Thursday night by a slick Western Bulldogs.

Trailing by 24 points at half-time, they were out of the contest after the Dogs kicked the first two goals of the second half.

But the Eagles still won 16 games for the season, which in every other year, since and including 2000, has been enough to finish in the top four (as high as two) and earn a second chance.

Not this year though – and Simpson said that team selection for the elimination final, the controversial bye or poor kicking at goal, cost them the game. And he padded back suggestions that his side was suffering a hangover after playing in last year's grand final.

But he does admit to having an empty feeling after the loss.

"Every time you lose a game like this in a final you feel like you've wasted the whole year," he said. "They're hurting as much as the coaches are and the club and the members and supporters, don't get me wrong. We need to reflect on the game and we need to improve over the summer.

"But there's a lot of the season I was proud of. To get to where we did, to get to 16 wins, so I was trying to find the balance between the two. I don't know if I succeeded.

"The profile (of the squad) is pretty strong, where we sit with age bracket and games played. We'll look at some individuals and priorities, but we'll get onto that in the next week or two."

Simpson will be looking at growing the maturity of the group. After notching wins over GWS, Hawthorn and Adelaide in the lead up to the finals, he was disappointed that, as a group, they couldn't continue that into the finals.

Despite having less of the ball, the Eagles laid only one more tackle for the game – and there would be few players on the list Simpson will question for their inability to feature in that key statistic.

The Bulldogs, as they have done all season when they have looked good, were convincing winners in the contested possession count – 162-139.

"Well that's a sign of immaturity isn't it?" Simpson said. "Once you hit a certain level where you get a bit of attention and a bit of coverage, can you match that year after year and become consistent player?

"That's our job as well to get them in the right headspace to turn up and produce in big games. We spoke to them about pressure as a privilege and we didn't handle that tonight.

"To the Bulldogs credit, they played their best footy and that's what you expect in a final and we didn't. So for us to be a chance tonight we had to play at our best and they didn't allow us to do that and we didn't do it ourselves."

Scott Lycett copped a knock to his troublesome knee in the opening term and was clearly hurt for the remainder of the game. He will require surgery.

With that in mind, one of the Eagles challenges is to ensure they have enough resources to cover that department, considering that Nic Naitanui will miss the entire 2017 season after injuring his ACL.

"Well we've got to get creative. It's that balance between finding some talent out there for a short period of time because we think we've got some really good ruck stocks but unfortunately they're not going to be available," Simpson said.

"Obviously Nic's not going to be available for a chunk of next season so we need to make sure we get that right over the break."