WESTERN Bulldogs veteran Daniel Cross has labelled his side's efforts to limit the Brisbane Lions' uncontested ball during their 58-point loss on Saturday as "disgraceful".

The Bulldogs, who were soundly beaten in most statistical categories, lost the uncontested possessions 254-206 and the uncontested marks 99-64.

Watch Brendan McCartney's post match press conference on the media player above.

"The most disappointing part was we know what they do when they play well, we did our homework on it really well, [but] we didn't do it," Cross said post-match.

"They're a very high uncontested possession side - plus 60 or 70 - and that's around what they get when they win, and [in regard to] their midfield marks we were disgraceful at allowing them to lead up.

"We were really poor today, [and] good last week, [but] you can't be inconsistent like that at this level."

Watch Brian Lake speak to BulldogsTV post match.

Bulldogs coach Brendan McCartney said certain aspects of the Dogs' play - namely their failure to adhere to the basics - were "probably the most disappointing they've been".

"We just weren't much fun to watch today, I wouldn't have thought," McCartney said.

"It was a day where it didn't seem to matter what we did, we didn’t have enough concerted, consistent, ruthless effort in the hard and difficult side of the game.

"[What] we've got to keep promoting and building is when things are slipping you've got to make behaviour changes to shore things up and be a bit tougher to play against.

"Today they did a lot better than us. They played like we wanted to play.

"You don't feel great after a day like this, and our club doesn’t feel great, and you hurt for a while."

McCartney refused to comment on Adam Cooney, who struggled and appeared to lack mobility.

"You won't find me spending too much time talking about one player or two players when you get beaten badly," he said. "I don't think that's fair. We win together as a team and we lose together as a team."

And he was sympathetic to the plight of young tall forwards Ayce Cordy and Liam Jones, both of whom made little impact.

"Our big tall kids caused headaches last week and provided opportunities for their teammates, [but] today it didn't quite work as well," he said.

"We didn't help them early. We mucked around with the ball. It wouldn't have been a lot of fun to play in there today. At times they would have been quite frustrated at the way the ball was put in there, and how slow we were to put the ball in there at times."

McCartney was impressed with the debut of ruckman Tom Campbell, who was elevated from the Bulldogs' rookie list mid-week.

"He's showed signs he's going to be a very good player, which we knew," he said. "Now the balancing act is to get game time into him and other tall players."