Autopsy Bulldogs challenge convention that goals are better than behinds, comfortably defeat Great Waste of Space

[PurpJuice]

Cleary is the sort of guy who plays 150 games and opposition fans won't recognise him.

Does what he's asked, no fuss, needs gym time to get the strength to stick tackles as GWS rolled their forwards pretty heavily and he often had to take bigger opponents. Uses the ball well too.

A perfect bottom 6 player. Such an improvement on last years.

 

[perro_loco]

Great win but should have been much easier. We certainly know how to make it difficult for ourselves. We brought plenty of pressure and broke down GWS's running game.
Treloar, Richards excellent. English very competitive in ruck. Naughton strong when it counted. Duryea, Jones and Dale prevented their forwards getting away. Harmes very influential in the last. Darcy continuing to excite.
Jamarra now an issue. Not sure his place in the side is justified.
Consistent team performance for 4 quarters.

Jamarra is pretty poor atm. Needs to go to the seconds. Provides little forward pressure and his kicking is atrocious. Tackling is also poor. Bramble is a spud. Apart from that, it was the best win of the year so far. We played really well. I like the look of Freijah. He is gonna be good that kid. Darcy is a star in the making. Cleary was solid too. Keep it up dogs.

 

[Dogs Rule]

I don't know how to feel. Thrilled that we won comfortably over that piece of s*** team especially that turd in the number 4, annoyed with our atrocious conversion in front of goal.

Seriously guys, practice and then practice again and again and maybe Johnno can help or something. Ridiculous.

 

[Doggies7]

Shout out to Keith has stabilised our defence very well, Khamis did good things but makes big mistakes and gets lost, Keith plays the percentages more Jones Keith O'Donnell is a very solid 3 tall defensive setup

I absolutely agree, but couldn't bring myself to like your post because you called him Keith 3 times

 

[ossie_21]

Some absolutely shocking misses, but happy to beat the plastics no matter the scenario.

Even if it’s in front of 300 people on a cold & wet night.

 

[CaptainMurphy]

Gritty win, minor shades of that gritty win against the other Sydney team in the wet 8 or 9 years ago (I ain't no mathemagician)

I cried watching that game. 4th favourite game of all time. (1st: 2016 prelim, 2nd: 2016 grand final, 3rd: 2000 round 21)

 

[4Seasons]

Lol to people who said we won't play finals.
When did the Western Suburbs become dominated by so many sooks?

 

[Floridog]

Brilliant strategy by our mastermind Luke Beveridge! Kick a goal and the ball comes out to midfield, kick a behind and the ball stays in the forward fifty where it belongs. Even the commentators, late in the game, noted that the only way GWS were going to get the ball out of their defensive fifty was to let the Bulldogs kick a goal.

 

[theAthenian]

very good - now pluck a swan and a magpie in the next 2 weeks and all will be forgiven

 

[bresker]

Bont was also wearing a hard tag by Callan ward

8

Callan Ward

Age

34

Ht

187cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

22.8

5star

K

11.2

4star

HB

11.5

5star

M

3.8

4star

T

4.3

5star

CL

5.4

5star

D

17.8

4star

K

9.0

4star

HB

8.8

4star

M

2.3

2star

T

2.3

3star

CL

3.3

4star

D

10.0

3star

K

4.4

2star

HB

5.6

4star

M

3.0

3star

T

1.8

4star

, so he took one of their best mids out of the game . Ward had 19 possessions, Bont had 18 but as the game wore on Bont clearly had more influence on the contest .

 

[Charlie Bucket]

It was not a poor game from Bont.

People really need to watch the game rather than look at stats.
Recently teams have been closely tagging Bont so he hasn’t had as many clear possessions but he has still been having enormously positive impact on games.

His taps to advantage which aren’t credited as stats are often more impactful than a handball or a kick.
Plus he clears space and occupies so much of the opposition’s resources that he makes the game much easier for his team mates.

Bont was still very good today, including taking an amazingly difficult mark at a crucial time when GWS were charging mid way through the last quarter.

If you’re using “Taps to advantage and clearing space” to defend a players performance then it’s a sign they’ve had an ordinary night.

You can paint it which ever way you want, but for his high standard games, that was underwhelming (better?). He’s the best player in the comp at prime age. He’s not a 35 year old Pendles.

Not sure about you, but if Bont was to play out the rest of his career, playing that game each week, I’d be disappointed.

On the flip side, not that long ago I think we could all agree that playing a game with an underperforming Bont and no Libba, we’d have pencilled in a 10 goal loss. We’re in new territory. It’s exciting.

Great win, with a lot of the bottom end players holding up well.

 

[ScragCity]

Lol to people who said we won't play finals.
When did the Western Suburbs become dominated by so many sooks?

We are currently 11th with two likely losses coming up (based on market odds, not my subjective opinion). I'm still quite confident that the Dogs won't be playing finals this year. That doesn't make me a sook; just a pragmatist. I'd love to be wrong.

 

[ScottyDogg]

Brilliant strategy by our mastermind Luke Beveridge! Kick a goal and the ball comes out to midfield, kick a behind and the ball stays in the forward fifty where it belongs. Even the commentators, late in the game, noted that the only way GWS were going to get the ball out of their defensive fifty was to let the Bulldogs kick a goal.

In the conditions it’s actually not a bad point.

 

[Dazb86]

We are currently 11th with two likely losses coming up (based on market odds, not my subjective opinion). I'm still quite confident that the Dogs won't be playing finals this year. That doesn't make me a sook; just a pragmatist. I'd love to be wrong.

If we made the 8 we'd be a genuine chance at a flag again. We'd have to knock off all the top 8 sides just to make it.

 

[Dogs Rule]

Lol to people who said we won't play finals.
When did the Western Suburbs become dominated by so many sooks?

Get it, but don't go too early. Loooong way to go just yet. Promising, but one at a time.

Get through the next month at 4-0 (highly unlikely), 3-1 (possible), 2-2 (likely in current form).

3-1 and we get to 8-6 and give ourselves a shot given we play North twice on the run home.

 

[grassman75]

Darcy is unique

The unique corn

 

[grassman75]

Our fixture suddenly looks passable.

Sydney will be hard but Lions, Pies & Dockers at home all look winnable.

As long as we are competitive off a 5 day road trip n shit conditions, and don’t blow % and momentum gained last night, that will be a pass. Focus the energy on the 3 games after that

 

[Optimistic Dog]

If we win against the swans after a 5 day break it would be one of our best wins since 2021.

 

[Johnny_Dogg4]

the rain definitely helped us , we are a pretty good wet weather side

 

[doggy_dog]

If you’re using “Taps to advantage and clearing space” to defend a players performance then it’s a sign they’ve had an ordinary night.

You can paint it which ever way you want, but for his high standard games, that was underwhelming (better?). He’s the best player in the comp at prime age. He’s not a 35 year old Pendles.

Not sure about you, but if Bont was to play out the rest of his career, playing that game each week, I’d be disappointed.

On the flip side, not that long ago I think we could all agree that playing a game with an underperforming Bont and no Libba, we’d have pencilled in a 10 goal loss. We’re in new territory. It’s exciting.

Great win, with a lot of the bottom end players holding up well.

Yes he was down last night by his ridiculously high standards, but the fact that he still finds so many ways to contribute even in a ‘poor’ game just shows how great the man is

 

[Dazb86]

I can't work this team out at all.

Great win

 

[Doggies_13]

Was a good win and should have won by a bigger margin.

Some guys continued to show their development which was great to see, Richards in the middle is growing week by week, Freijah and Cleary both showed they have a lot for us to work with moving forward. Thought Gallagher was good again backing up last weeks game.

I am not getting carried away though Giants have had a soft draw their wins (Pies by 32, North by 39, Eagles by 65, Suns by 28, Saints by 1 and Lions by 54) Pies win was in O round. I don’t think they are as good as their ladder position suggests.

Also, I think the conditions really suited us, in those conditions a lot of our deficiencies, especially defensive ones are lessened. It’s a lot hard to transition quickly with run and carry or uncontested short kicking which we have been deplorable at defending and which is a weapon of the giants. In this conditions it’s a lot of longer kicking and contest kicking which suits us.

If we stay within five goals of Sydney on Thursday night, then I’ll start to pay more attention and consider that we are heading in the right direction

 

[Golden_6]

As long as we are competitive off a 5 day road trip n s**t conditions, and don’t blow % and momentum gained last night, that will be a pass. Focus the energy on the 3 games after that

It also helps that other than Sydney, it doesn’t look like there are any runaway teams this season.

 

[Mofra]

Was a good win and should have won by a bigger margin.

Some guys continued to show their development which was great to see, Richards in the middle is growing week by week, Freijah and Cleary both showed they have a lot for us to work with moving forward. Thought Gallagher was good again backing up last weeks game.

I am not getting carried away though Giants have had a soft draw their wins (Pies by 32, North by 39, Eagles by 65, Suns by 28, Saints by 1 and Lions by 54) Pies win was in O round. I don’t think they are as good as their ladder position suggests.

Also, I think the conditions really suited us, in those conditions a lot of our deficiencies, especially defensive ones are lessened. It’s a lot hard to transition quickly with run and carry or uncontested short kicking which we have been deplorable at defending and which is a weapon of the giants. In this conditions it’s a lot of longer kicking and contest kicking which suits us.

If we stay within five goals of Sydney on Thursday night, then I’ll start to pay more attention and consider that we are heading in the right direction

They did only lose to the pies by 1 point in the prelim and of they win that, they probably win the flag.
They had two injuries out but from the first few minutes our defensive pressure was up so we clearly came to play. Doc's 200th and O'Driscoll's retirement helped.

I wonder if there's anything to tap into for the follow up game against the swans.

 

[Pocket Terrace]

Bit of a random observation - one of the reasons we couldn’t put them away in the third quarter was how well they tackled, meaning a lot of our ball use was really messy (yes, also conditions). Their tackling throughout was actually really impressive.

But that’s about all they did well. So, they can get ****ed.