Every Pre-season for the last four years I have looked at the Western Bulldogs team and saw a nucleus of a Premiership contender, and in all bar one of those seasons they haven’t put in an effort worthy of a finals contender. Bontempelli, Liberatore, Naughton, Ugle-Hagan, Treloar, Macrae, Daniel, English, and Smith are good enough to get a team playing finals football. Yes, there are holes in the side with a lack of key defenders and lack of quality outside running players (which we will touch on later) but there simply needs to be questions asked of the coaching group and how they want this team to play and whether the current game plan suits the talent at their disposal.
Although it can be hard to see what the game plan is currently, stats tell us that they are trying to play a possession based game which includes needing precision ball use when going inside fifty. Dropping Caleb Daniel, Bailey Dale, and Jack Macrae who are essentially their best ball users therefore makes no sense whatsoever. Outside of Marcus Bontempelli the Bulldogs midfielders aren’t good ball users. Adam Treloar is the man that has kicked the ball inside fifty on the most occasions for the Dogs this season and it is widely acknowledged that he is a poor kick. Tom Liberatore is slightly better but the same logic applies. When you compare this to the current benchmark in the Giants who have players like Josh Kelly, Lachie Whitfield, and Tom Green delivering it inside fifty it looks night and day and their inside fifties show this.
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The other issue with a possession based game plan (or over possessing the ball when the pressure arises) is that the Bulldogs have an incredibly tall forward line which needs quick entries and one on one contests. Aaron Naughton is 196cm, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is 197cm, and Sam Darcy and Rory Lobb are both over 205cm. To take advantage of their height and marking dominance you would think that you would want to play a run and gun, get it in their quick style of football which would unquestionably have every back six in the league worried. Instead, the Bulldogs play a methodical and predictable style of football that allows teams to get numbers back and blunts any offensive weapons that they have.
Now, we get to the list build. Although I don’t think Luke Beveridge should have a job, I don’t think the list manager in Sam Power should escape scrutiny. The Bulldogs simply have no key defenders and I am not sure they have many good intercept defenders either. Liam Jones has become a good key defender but he is now thirty-three along with Alex Keath who is thirty-two which begs the question of who their key defenders are going to be in a year or two time. James O’Donnell has shown signs since moving to defence and the only other key defender on the list is their first round selection in 2022 in Jedd Busslinger who is yet to play a game. The lack of outside midfielders is also a major issue. Bontempelli, Liberatore, Treloar, and Macrae are all brilliant footballers but they do their best work on the inside. The outside brigade in Caleb Daniel and Bailey Dale aren’t being selected which leaves the likes of Bailey Williams and Jason Johannisen to fill the void who aren’t currently getting the job done.
Now we can discuss the coach in Luke Beveridge. The sheer arrogance of this man in his post-match press conference to say that they had “one eye on next week” had to be seen and heard to be believed. This was a Bulldogs team that was 2-2 after four games and had beaten Gold Coast (middle of the table side) and West Coast who are the worst side in the competition. What made Beveridge think that Essendon, a team who was also 2-2, could be underestimated?
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He then made comments surrounding Tom Liberatore collapsing after an obvious head knock/concussion that were just bizarre. Beveridge claimed that Liberatore had “lost his footing”. Generally, Luke, you stand back up after losing your footing. Liberatore face planted and didn’t get back up in what were truly scary scenes. I think Beveridge is a man that knows he is coaching for his career, and it is all starting to unravel mentally for him much like it did surrounding the Tom Morris saga.
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The Bulldogs play the Saints tonight and their season is on the line. If they cannot find a way to win this game against an undermanned Saints outfit in the face of the scrutiny they have been under all week, they simply aren’t a team ready to play finals football. Beveridge is the type of man who will live and die by the sword of his approach to the game of football, and he may in fact figuratively die on Thursday Night football with the eyes of the football world watching on.