He’s only 20 years of age, but Bailey Smith has already played some monumental games in the red, white and blue colours.

His performance in the Bulldogs’ monumental triumph against the Brisbane Lions in Saturday night’s Semi Final was one of the best of his 65 games to date.

With everything on the line, the Dogs overcame a 10-point deficit at three-quarter time to steal a one-point win, sending them into the Preliminary Final.

Pivotal in the tense last term was Smith’s ability to run until he could no longer, outlasting those around him who were starting to run out of gas.

At the six-minute mark of the quarter, it was his gut-busting run and pass to Josh Schache which put the Bulldogs in front.

Two minutes later, he wobbled through his second goal of the evening to extend the lead to eight points.

His most telling moment of impact was yet to come. 

With 30 minutes elapsed, he latched onto a Mitch Hannan handball deep in the pocket, calmly slotting it through on his left foot from the boundary, before turning to the crowd with an ‘ice in the veins’ celebration which would’ve made NBA star D’Angelo Russell proud.

For good measure, he played his part in Laitham Vandermeer’s match-winning point with just seconds left on the clock, pushing the ball into his team-mate’s path to eventually seal the Dogs’ passage through.

It was the first time Smith had kicked three goals at AFL level, and it came in a big-time, high pressure final.

“I thought he had an enormous last quarter,” said Bulldogs’ Senior Coach Luke Beveridge.

“Some of the shuffling of the roles meant that at one point we had all of those inside midfielders on the ground at the one time, which meant ‘Baz’ had to go and play forward for five and 10 minutes.

“He had a really big impact as a forward.  He was instrumental in us being in front by a point at the end of it all.

“His role in proceedings can’t be undersold.”