West Coast co-captain Oscar Allen felt like everyone hated him after revelations of meeting Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell

West Coast co-captain Oscar Allen says he didn’t handle the public scrutiny over his meeting with Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell during a “really tough” period as he downplayed talk of a “crisis meeting” at the winless Eagles. Allen, who is out of contract at the end of this season, was forced to publicly apologise to West Coast fans and subsequently took a break from the game after the meeting with Mitchell was revealed. The 26-year-old, who didn’t kick a goal in his playing return against Hawthorn last weekend after missing round 7, said he felt like “everyone hated me” during the ordeal and poor on-field performances required him to step away. “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 Thursday. “I’m doing a lot better now. It obviously was really tough. “My job was going poorly. Publicly, everyone hated me and my performance was poor. “It was tough but I’ve had a really good support network around me: my partner, family, the footy club have supported me as well with my decision. “I’m just excited now to get back into footy.” Allen said news of the meeting with Mitchell coming out was frustrating, as it was just “two guys having a chat”. “We caught up completely privately, just two guys having a chat. We talked about a lot of things,” he told Ben Cousins’ Mix94.5 breakfast show in Perth. “We were having conversations about where I’m at, how I’ve been going this year and a combination of things. “We had a good conversation there, then it got played out that I met him in public. Allen said he had “deleted” all his social media in the wake of the ordeal and urged anyone who is “struggling with stuff” to do the same. The Eagles have lost all seven games this season and sit on the bottom of the ladder, with reports emerging the leaders and some coaches met for crisis talks. But Allen said it was nothing abnormal and all about wanting to get better. “It was just a meeting where we had a conversation, senior players and senior members at the footy club, about how can we get better as an organisation,” he said. “I reckon every single company in the world has had a million of these meetings, I wouldn’t exactly call it a crisis meeting.” Eagles coach Andrew McQualter also said the meeting had been “blown up” and was nothing irregular. “I want to speak to our members on this topic because it’s been blown up the last couple of days… we haven’t kept this as a secret,” he said. “Any organisation that is underperforming that doesn’t get their most influential people in a room to try to figure it out is being negligent. “We had a real purpose to get our senior players, our senior figures of our football department together to find a solution to the way out of where we’re at. We’re not happy with where we’re at. “It was a super productive meeting, everything was on the table and there has been some growth in us, our game and our environment and we’re going to continue to do it. We’re going to have meetings like that again with the sole purpose of getting better.