dogwatch
Premium Platinum
With a hard fixture coming home we have the apparent good fortune to have two games against the presumptive wooden spooners. However North, after many years of early draft picks and many missteps along the way, are finally starting to put together some good form. Last week they went down to Melbourne by 3 points. Melbourne showed the value of that form in a close game against Brisbane that they probably should have won last night. Two weeks ago North lost by a point after building what should have been an unloseable lead against the reigning premiers, Collingwood. And the week before that they beat West Coast in Perth. That's actually the form you'd expect of a side challenging for the 8, not one anchored at the bottom the ladder.
So they are not to be taken lightly. And yet the Bulldogs are in season best form themselves.
These are the games that any serious challenger for the finals must win in the closing stages of the H&A season. They are also the games that the Bulldogs have managed to blow in bewildering fashion in recent years, even when a place in the finals or the top 4 was the prize for winning. Those are the games that created the greatest doubt among the Bevo-doubters.
Then we have the problem of having so many high quality talls on the list. And the return it seems, of the four-headed monster (JUH, Naughton, Darcy, Lobb ... and possibly even Bontempelli). The last time this was tried it failed and was quickly trashcanned. Is this the time to be trying it again? Certainly the times have changed - Darcy is a much more accomplished player, Naughton is playing higher, Lobb has just had his best ever game. But the game has changed too and it's all about fast ball movement and the ability to break the lines, not so much about marking power. That's the sort of list North are building.
Fortunately for us Wardlaw is out. But a doubt hangs over Bontempelli's fitness and he might not even play. Coming off the bye is not going to help our cause either.
If you'd called this a danger game 8 weeks ago you would have been laughed out of the room. But we are the Bulldogs and a danger game it is. It always is.
I'm going Dogs by 32 but any other result - from a hiding of us to a smashing of North - wouldn't surprise me.
So they are not to be taken lightly. And yet the Bulldogs are in season best form themselves.
These are the games that any serious challenger for the finals must win in the closing stages of the H&A season. They are also the games that the Bulldogs have managed to blow in bewildering fashion in recent years, even when a place in the finals or the top 4 was the prize for winning. Those are the games that created the greatest doubt among the Bevo-doubters.
Then we have the problem of having so many high quality talls on the list. And the return it seems, of the four-headed monster (JUH, Naughton, Darcy, Lobb ... and possibly even Bontempelli). The last time this was tried it failed and was quickly trashcanned. Is this the time to be trying it again? Certainly the times have changed - Darcy is a much more accomplished player, Naughton is playing higher, Lobb has just had his best ever game. But the game has changed too and it's all about fast ball movement and the ability to break the lines, not so much about marking power. That's the sort of list North are building.
Fortunately for us Wardlaw is out. But a doubt hangs over Bontempelli's fitness and he might not even play. Coming off the bye is not going to help our cause either.
If you'd called this a danger game 8 weeks ago you would have been laughed out of the room. But we are the Bulldogs and a danger game it is. It always is.
I'm going Dogs by 32 but any other result - from a hiding of us to a smashing of North - wouldn't surprise me.
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