Review Bulldogs scrap a 39 point win over GWS - Rd 6 2021

[dogwatch]

Good to see a live game at last (and to catch up with a few of the far flung BF crew ).

It was a strange night. Not much atmosphere at all. Some mates up from Vic said the same. Before the game we had been reminiscing over a beer about the famous 2016 PF and how electric and special that whole night was. This night was the antithesis.

The Dogs were much the same as the crowd. I can usually tell 5-10 minutes into a game whether we are "on" or not and we definitely weren't. There were worrying signs all through that first quarter. Things we haven't been seeing until now. Missed handballs, missed kicks, fumbles, slipped tackles of GWS players, trying to shrug tackles ourselves and getting caught, loose defending. It just seemed like we were a touch complacent. Or maybe just jaded - it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes. And to GWS's credit they weren't trying to start a stoush at all, they were keen, fast and tenacious and kept up the pressure most of the game. I had to check the stats because I wasn't even sure we were winning the clearances.

I did have the feeling that our advantage in experience and age would see us through a long game, and so it proved but it was a good reality check. The best sort really ... where you get a fright but still come away with the four points.

Some random observations:

• Naughton is the most watchable player in the side by a good margin. Maybe in the AFL. He may have only kicked 2 goals but he must give defenders nightmares. Fast. Great hands. Huge leap. Irrepressible self belief. Good below his knees. Always keen to play on.
• English had a shocker, long before Naughton's knee smashed into his jaw and ended his night. Just hope it's not a fracture and no dental damage. I just saw the replay and it was a scary impact.
• Hunter did some very nice things. He gets a bad rap here.
• Lin Jong ...
  
• Keath was fantastic all night
• Macrae was his usual indomitable self. More Brownlow votes tonight I reckon.
• Good on Lachie McNeil for seizing his chance and bobbing up with 2 goals and an assist. I know he didn't get big stats but he also only had 65% ToG. He's not a lock for the 22 by any means but I just like this kid.
• The two most reliable shots for goal in this side are Liberatore (his kicking is hugely underrated) and Dale. Both set shots and on the run.
• Treloar is fast becoming one of the most important players in the side. Great again tonight. I hope the Dunkley injury doesn't force a change in role for him.

Overall I felt that tonight was a danger game. And that's not just the usual Doggy paranoia. It's hard to stay "up" for long stretches of games and with five straight we'd been doing better than any side so far. This was the sort of game where a 10% drop in intensity could prove costly. It nearly did. Credit to GWS too.

However the 9 goal final term showed the hallmarks of a side that will challenge deep into September. The Bulldogs of 2017-2020 would have lost tonight.

 

[Boyd oh Boyd]

A few players below their best but that leaves us with some room to grow. Both Bevo and Cameron mentioned that GWS were playing a very tight 1v1 defence. Seems like this will be something to watch as it restricted us most of the game. Bruce and English especially were victims of the restricted space. Naughton thrived but kicked waywardly, I'm confident he'll grow in that area though. Smalls with pace to shake their man will be crucial as I'm sure better teams were taking notes and will try the same thing to better effect.

Really we just missed a lot of gettable shots in the first 3 quarters. If we were 11.6 at 3 quarter time there would be no concerns at all. Looking forward to seeing the expected scores because that tells us more about the team as a whole. Fixed it in the last quarter and ran over them. Not a perfect win but a still a good one.

 

[dogwatch]

Exactly why come brownlow time the 3 votes will go to the best on ground: Macrae

Quite possibly. And Macrae would probably be deserving of the votes too. He's having a brilliant season.

My point is not to argue whether Greene or Macrae or someone else was BoG. It's to dismiss the idiotic notion (usually only maintained by the idiotic media commentators but now, it seems, sneaking into BF) that you couldn't possibly have played better than everyone else on the ground ... because your team lost.

 

[Mattdougie]

Quite possibly. And Macrae would probably be deserving of the votes too. He's having a brilliant season.

My point is not to argue whether Greene or Macrae or someone else was BoG. It's to dismiss the idiotic notion (usually only maintained by the idiotic media commentators but now, it seems, sneaking into BF) that you couldn't possibly have played better than everyone else on the ground ... because your team lost.

Not sure how they will vote but I’d be stunned if Greene doesn’t poll on Brownlow night for this game.

If back home for the umps to give him 3 and he will go very close to winning Charlie himself imo

 

[dogwatch]

Imagine Private massaging someone because They disagree with your posts PATHETIC

Take the squabble off line chaps. We really don't care.

 

[The Buck]

Most of the positives have been said so I’ll say the negatives that irritated me all game long.

English was shocking.

Smith was drinking his own bath water for a bit.

Don’t see anything in Scott.

Jong as much as I like him and think he as AFL ability shouldnt have played his body is not up to it, we’ve known this for 5 years now.

Cordy is a tortoise.

Vandermeer didn’t do anything.

Yes, but we still ended up winning by 39 points. Did you see Bevo ripping in to a few players post-match? Plenty of negatives but many vital lessons learned and just the sort of game we needed in preparation for the Tigers' game next Friday.

 

[Leon]

Treloar - Along with Macrae and Libba was our best by far. We won the lottery without buying a ticket getting him.

Bonti - I thought he was good without it being a classic game from him. Needed him to stand up in the last quarter and he did.

Dunkley - Was excellent and will be a big loss. Hoping for the least worst news tomorrow.

Smith - Better in the last quarter but overall was ordinary. The game style didn’t really suit him.

Hunter - Worked his arse and for once was actually creative in the forward line.

Crozier - Absolutely shocking turnover which led to a goal for them, he is usually reliable and excellent though.

Wood - Was ok. His experience is good in leading the backline, he organises everyone well.

Macrae - Love him I wanna boof him get him up here. Seriously sensational player - I said before that senior players really needed to step up in a night where it was tough going for us and he was easily the best of them. He’s great every single week though.

Cordy - I though Lewy Young was very harshly treated in being dropped. On tonight’s showing I prefer Young. Not saying Cordy was bad but better option is Young

Duryea - We have about 1500 running half backs, so he has to wait until this year to cement his spot and he has. Very solid.

Bruce - Had a reasonable first half but did he actually touch it in the second?

Libba - Sensational all night, inside and outside. Very mature performance.

VanDerMeer - I love him but not one of his better games. In fact scratch that, he was very ordinary. I’m not worried about him - give him some time for Footscray perhaps.

Scott - Barely noticed him all night to be honest.

McNeill - Kicked two goals but didn’t rate his game.

Dale - Think it is safe to say he has finally arrived. Excellent yet again.

Naughton - If he knew how to take a set shot he would be the best player in the league just about. His marking is sensational and he is fantastic to watch, but I nearly lost what little hair I still have when he missed that shot in the 3rd from 20m out right in front.

Daniel - Didn’t think he was that great to be honest.

JJ - Kicked the goal we needed him to but other than that was poor. He’s a frustrating player these days to be honest.

Keath - Absolutely outstanding. Reads everything so well.

English - One of his worst games for a while, obviously he is important and hopefully will be ok.

Jong - Said it on page 1, I love him, but it’s time to put a line through him. His body just cannot withstand this level of footy.

 

[Unorth]

Couldn’t care less what you think

Relax mate. I'm obviously partial to a bit of back and forth with MD myself, but that post sounds a lot like something the man himself would say! None of us are gonna change his mind on just about anything any time soon, sometimes it's best just to disengage and walk away.

 

[Bulldogs85]

Take the squabble off line chaps. We really don't care.

Respectively I couldn’t careless what you think Anyway GO DOGS

 

[Bulldogs85]

Relax mate. I'm obviously partial to a bit of back and forth with MD myself, but that post sounds a lot like something the man himself would say! None of us are gonna change his mind on just about anything any time soon, sometimes it's best just to disengage and walk away.

I apologise mate don’t want to change MD mind he can have his opinion

 

[doggies ftw]

No he hasn’t, the whole backline worries me and got pulled apart by a pretty ordinary team tonight. Thought the whole backline tonight apart from Keath was rubbish

Dale never had issues with speed. You cannot play wing at AFL level being slow AND not having elite work rate

Yeah those 9 goals kicked against us were brutal

 

[doggies ftw]

He may be an a$$ but you have to accept his best two mates at the club were Lake and Griff.

In his world we screwed all three and treated them like sh!t.

Also couldn’t stand Campbell Rose or Macca and in his defence there weren’t many that didn’t also

Needs to build a bridge but there is several layers to his delusion.

Alright this takes the cake for bad calls, we screwed Griffen? How on earth did we screw Griffen

 

[theAthenian]

ljong (replacable) and english (short term)
as for josh omg we cant replace that
we will be an inferior version of ourselves till he is back
if he gets back this year which - i believe is a stretch

 

[the dog's kennel]

Lipinski against the tigers run and speed would be an awful selection.

He does next to no defensive running at all and is slower than me with one knee.

Given that Bevo went out of his way to give Lipinski a big wrap in the presser tonight when asked about players to come in, I would have thought he's a given for next week. So the proof will be in the pudding - let's see!

 

[Cadillac]

He may be an a$$ but you have to accept his best two mates at the club were Lake and Griff.

In his world we screwed all three and treated them like sh!t.

Also couldn’t stand Campbell Rose or Macca and in his defence there weren’t many that didn’t also

Needs to build a bridge but there is several layers to his delusion.

Wait,.. we screwed over Griffin lol? ... how?

 

[Oliver G]

Probably the most frustrating game in a year or two but still can't complain about a 40 point win and being 6-0.

Could not feel any more sorry for Jong and Dunkley is a big loss but a straight swap for Lipinski should cover at least 60-70% of what Dunkley offers.

If he wasn't already Macrae is a big big chance for the Brownlow now. His efficiency by hand has always been close to the best in the competition and now his kicking right up there, the last two weeks his all but a couple of his inside 50 kicks have been just about perfect.

Macrae - Kicking Efficiency
2019: 65%
2020: 59%
2021: 69%

Macrae - Disposal Efficiency
2019: 74%
2020: 72%
2021: 80%

Sorry for the lateness but as always here are some of the rarer stats…

Expected Score
WB: 108
GW: 58

Centre Bounce Attendance
23 - Macrae
19 - Martin
18 - Bontempelli
14 - Treloar
12 - Liberatore
11 - Dunkley
8 - English
3 - Smith

Ruck Contests (Hitouts/To Advantage)
51 - Martin (28/11)
37 - English (17/8)

Hitouts To Advantage

WB: 19
GW: 8

First Possessions
WB: 48
GW: 36

Clearances/Effective Clearances
WB: 46/38
GW: 32/19

Tackle Efficiency
WB: 58%
GW: 55%

Forward Half Contested Marks
WB: 9
GW: 6

Score Launches
6 - Martin
3 - Dunkley, English
2 - Crozier, Treloar, Bontempelli, Liberatore
1 - Keath, Macrae, Johannisen, Wood, McNeil, Bruce, Hunter, Smith, Scott

Shots At Goal
WB: 30 (50%)

GW: 18 (50%)

Targets Inside 50
13 - Naughton
4 - Bruce
3 - Bontempelli
2 - Dunkley, Scott, Vandermeer, Martin, Hunter, McNeil
1 - English, Dale, Smith

Defensive 50 Intercept Marks
WB: 7
GW: 6

Unforced Turnovers
WB: 9
GW: 7

No Pressure Errors
WB: 4
GW: 7

Turnovers/Frees/50M Penalties Punished By Goals
2 - Macrae
1 - Bontempelli, Dale, Crozier, Vandermeer, Treloar, Hunter

Pressure Gauge
WB: 187 (Average)
GW: 189 (Average)

Free Kick Summary


Score Sources

 

[Kermit]

Not sure how they will vote but I’d be stunned if Greene doesn’t poll on Brownlow night for this game.

I wouldn’t. He was clearly best for GWS but he had several frees paid against him and it is the “fairest” and best award - umps don’t always like how he goes about it.

 

[ScragCity]

McSteal is so good at intercepting Oppo handballed. Kicked another goal from it.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Good chance of that being our total score, as opposed to winning margin!

You don't loose many at Launceston

 

[Dogs Rule]

What a campaigner Adam Cooney has become. Openly supports the bombers hates the dogs. How can he give Greene BOG, Macrae has 40 and a goal, Treloar was second best maybe Greene gets one vote but they got beaten by 39 points.

He‘s bitter that the club had the gall to find a new home for a player with a chronic career ending knee injury so he could squeeze out another year or two. Appalling by our club really

In all seriousness he can GAGF.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Imagine Private massaging someone because They disagree with your posts PATHETIC

Think you meant this for the erotic fiction thread

 

[Dogs Rule]

Ok ok - why are we stressing?!

Treloar into the centre. Lippa onto the wing. Sweet as the rotating ruck or Schache if we need more flexibility. Not majorly impacted.

We are a quality team.

Exactly. Wasn’t that long ago we were bemoaning Dunkley as being just a good ordinary player and a poor kick. We have plenty of midfield depth. Plenty. We’ll be fine.

We’re 6-0 and a game clear on top with a 175%.

Bring on Richmond.

 

[grassman75]

I'm sad. Poor Jongy. Poor Tim. Poor Dunks.

Dunkley is going to be a huge loss.

Unleash Westy

 

[grassman75]

Sweet

Dude...

 

[fronkalicious]

Awesome to meet Pugz, Dogwatch and Philmb last night.

Stef martin really opened things up for us in the last quarter. What a pick up.

Exciting to see the opportunities for improvement up close too. We can get better.



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