Western Bulldogs coach Nathan Burke says his side is heading in the right direction, despite still searching for a complete four-quarter performance.
The Bulldogs let one slip against Hawthorn at Mars Stadium, conceding the last three goals of the game to eventually go down by seven points.
“It’s one of those games where a lot of things happened - we got off to an okay start, but we gave away a couple of cheap ones,” Burke said in his post-match press conference.
“In the second quarter I thought we just didn’t spread to the contest. They sort of outworked us in that second quarter, and were getting on the outside far too easily.
“In the third we turned that around – the third quarter was actually pretty good. All of the things that we identified at half-time, we managed to change which was great, but the last quarter was just a bit of an arm wrestle.
“It was probably a quarter each throughout the middle, and an arm wrestle at the end that we didn’t quite win.”
With reigning premiers Melbourne their next challenge, Burke said he believes the wins will come if his side can continue improving each week.
“I didn’t expect to go through the season undefeated, but I didn’t expect to lose the first two either. I expect to win every game that we play,” the coach said.
“We’ll review that a little bit – we’re not going to dig deep into that one. What we’re going to do is just really focus on coming out against Melbourne and taking our game to that level that we can play.
“(We’re not going to) go over and above and try to do anything superhuman – I think we were better than what we were last week, and last week we were better than what we were in the practice matches.
“We’re heading in the right direction – if we keep doing that, the W’s will definitely happen.
“I don’t think we’re getting beaten by (individual players) – that’s not what is happening. It’s just switching off at certain times, not capitalising when we do have a good bit of play, and making the wrong decision every now and again.
“They’re still shaking that rust off a little bit from a long time ago when we actually played.
“We were better again today, but we need to be a lot better next week.
“I’ve got faith that they won’t dwell on this – they’re upset and they’re disappointed naturally, but will turn that into being fired up next week and putting that extra 10% on what we can do.”
The Bulldogs will meet the Dees in the 10-year Hampson-Hardeman Cup anniversary on Saturday afternoon at Casey Fields.
