Western Bulldogs head coach Nathan Burke says doing the little things right can be the difference between winning and losing, as seen in Saturday’s opening round clash against Geelong.
The Bulldogs suffered a 48-point loss in their first match of the 2023 NAB AFLW season, compounded by losing Elle Bennetts to an ACL injury on the eve of half-time.
“It was a really tough night. The scoreboard was tough, but I’m trying to nail down exactly what was the toughest part,” Burke said post-game.
“As I said to the players after the game, I’m super proud of their effort – they always give their utmost effort every single time – but it was just the little things in a game of football that we did wrong, and they capitalized on and kicked goals.
“I can’t question our effort. It’s probably our football smarts and our ability to cover off all of the little things – which are actually big things that result in goals to the other team.”
Burke also said it was probably a case of his side shooting themselves in the foot, with some crucial decision-making and reactive play resulting in goals against.
“If the other team are far better than us – we can live with that,” Burke said.
“What we can’t sort of handle is when we beat ourselves to a degree. There was a lot of stuff we did tonight that I’d put under the category of ‘we beat ourselves’.
“That’s not to take anything away from Geelong – I think they played really good football and better than us – but we gave them some stuff that you shouldn’t be able to give other teams.
“Geelong didn’t really give us anything. That’s why the margin sort of gets really blown out like it was.”
Gun midfielder Kirsty Lamb echoed Burke’s thoughts, acknowledging there is some work to be done ahead of a Sunday clash with the Hawks at Mars Stadium.
“I think it was our transition work – we constantly talk about having even balance at stoppages, but at times we just get caught out ball-watching a little bit.
“Particularly if we don’t win at stoppage, the opposition seem to get it and transition quite quickly. That’s sort of an around the ground thing, so will be something we can work on during the week in the lead-up to next weekend.
“We did a lot of work on it in the pre-season – but it’s something we probably really need to nail down.
“It didn’t come off tonight as well as we would’ve liked, but we’ll go to work on it during the week to try and fix it.”
In a more positive outlook, Lamb was particularly impressed with the trio of debutants and work-rate of some key forwards.
“Bree probably had a bit of a tough day given the ball wasn’t down there a lot, but Maggie and Dom’s contributions around the ball were really good.
“It was nice to see Twiggy (Sarah Hartwig) hit the scoreboard too – I think that was probably an area we can improve on too, just kicking to advantage particularly to our forwards. We didn’t really do that overly well tonight, but it’s something we can work on during the week.
“It was also good to have Kirsten McLeod back out there, Gabby Newton is up and firing – hopefully we get a few more back over the next couple of weeks and just keep building.”
