POOR kicking does more than deny a football team proper reward for effort. At its most costly, matches and entire campaigns are lost, a fact Dean Laidley and his Kangaroos seemed to recognise glumly last night.

The Roos, who have beaten West Coast only once in Laidley's time as coach and that being three years ago in Canberra, wanted to discover yesterday whether it is within them to beat the Eagles in a month's time. Victory, although preferable, wasn't necessary to confirm a narrowing of the gap between the sides. Nor was a spirited effort. That, for the most part, has been a given this season.

Instead, the answer was going to be found in a measure of poise and concentration in those heavyweight moments in football matches that cannot be forsaken. Could the Kangas seize them? Or, at least, enough of them to believe that on another day in the not-too-distant future victory would be theirs?

It was a question not altogether dissimilar to the one the Brisbane Lions needed an answer to in 2001, when they met Essendon mid-season at the Gabba. The dawn of the Great Age of the Lion Kings was about to break but, before it could, the Dons, who had unfurled their 16th premiership only months earlier, had to be conquered. Or equalled. Leigh Matthews and his team needed validation of their progress, belief. The coach said in the days before the game that "if it bleeds, we can kill it". The Lions won and, freed of at least one uncertainty, won again against Essendon months later in the grand final.

Laidley and his players did not find the reassurance they were searching for yesterday. They engaged the Eagles on big-occasion terms and didn't lack for much but what they did lack is the shimmering class that steals games from teams who do not possess it. And it goes by the name of kicking.

Three times in time-on in the third term yesterday, the Kangaroos seized not their opportunities but their own throats. From 15 metres, ruckman Hamish McIntosh missed. From 25 metres, Lindsay Thomas missed. From 40 metres, Brent Harvey missed.

After pulling the margin back to 11 points in the last term, Shannon Grant wobbled a 45-metre set shot into the arms of Dean Cox in the goal square. With the team's surge not stilled by this gaffe, Drew Petrie, who had played well for much of the match against Darren Glass, won a free kick that entitled him to a set shot from 40 metres. Not once in the course of its flight, from boot to crowd, did the football track at the gaping target between the two big posts.

It was, of course, a bitter experience for the royal blue and whites to see, the tallest player on the ground, play rover to his forwards, gather the ball as it fell from a pack, work on to his left foot and kick truly from an oblique forward pocket angle less than five minutes later.

The Roos finished with a score of 15.12 that suggested they were more accurate than not. Which, on the surface of things, is true. It was, though, when the game was demanding nothing less than a straight kick that they were unable to keep their aim true.

Later, Laidley could barely summon the words to describe how great a price the Roos paid, and may pay still, for their run of sinking misses. With some justification, he spoke well of his team's endeavour and of the valuable experience he believes the match will be for many of his players.

"Today was probably one of the best games of footy I've seen. I thought it was terrific. It was great for them (players) to play in that environment," Laidley said.

But those critical misses? Grant's miss, for example?

"Look, I'm not going to talk about that," he snapped, after earlier making a reluctant acknowledgement of their cost.

"Sure, we didn't take our opportunities, and the coach more than anyone hurts to see them not get reward for effort.

"The Eagles, look they're a fantastic football side and that's why they are like they are … Cox goes down there and kicks them out of his backside. You see that and you think, 'Well, we probably can't physically do any more'. We need to kick those goals, which is probably an understatement."

Or another way of saying that if you can't kick, you can't win.