Western Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli says starting the season well is always a key focus for the team.
The Bulldogs enjoyed a 57-point win over Hawthorn in their AAMI Community Series practice match over the weekend, which the skipper believes will hold the group in good stead ahead of their season opener against Melbourne on Sunday week.
“I mean it’s ultimately a focus every season - you never want to be, unfortunately as we've done in the past, sort of chasing down the madding pack in terms of where our ladder position sits,” Bontempelli told SEN Breakfast during the Bulldogs Blitz on Tuesday morning.
“I think you can create opportunities and then obviously get good results early on which allows you to enter the season in the right manner, and then obviously you’re not under the pump chasing.
“We’ve always been a team that wants to start games well and start the season well, and I think the weekend’s game was a bit of an element of that.
“Each team can probably take (the practice) game differently about what they're trying to achieve - whether it’s load management, whether it's trying to save guys for round one – but especially in the last sort of four or five years, we’ve never had that attitude.
“We've always treated it as a semi-round one really. As you could probably tell from the team that that rolled out, it’s most of the guys that you’d expect to see playing in round one.
“That’s always our focus - I think it really puts us in a good state of mind for next week when we play the Dees.”
Bontempelli also acknowledged the team is looking to improve its consistency in-games this year, after some frustrating patches in 2023.
“I can understand that our form and consistency hasn't been where we've wanted in the last couple of years, but I think across the off-season and pre-season we've tried to best equip ourselves to play the game and the style of game we want to for longer,” he said.
“I think there's definitely an element (last year) where we were able to be pretty potent sometimes in first halves and maybe weren't able to go on with it in in some games. Obviously, the close losses last year affected our position on the ladder as well.
“I definitely believe that we’re in a better position than we were last year from a physical skillset and our make-up. I think you saw a little bit of that come out in the game that we played on Saturday.
“I'm excited about what the season holds for us, and obviously that is chasing, you know, improvements in a number of areas. Hopefully that sees us improve on our ladder position.”
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