Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says the most disappointing aspect to Sunday’s round one loss was how quickly the margin blew out in the final term.

The Bulldogs got off to a solid start against Melbourne at the MCG and were right in the game even at three-quarter time, before conceding the final three goals of the match.

“If you look at how they exited their rebound 50s and us being able to contain that or disallow a lot of uncontested marks – it was a problem for us in the game,” Beveridge said post-match.

“At times our template to now with our ball movement and what we’ve been doing up until today’s game – in the pre-season with a couple of games against Hawthorn we looked pretty good in transition and our counter-offence out of our defensive area – but it stalled too much today.

“There was a bit of a disconnect and void throughout the middle of the ground. We were spread too far.

“That made it difficult because we didn’t win the battle around the source. (Melbourne) put better pressure on us than what we put on them.

“The most disappointing part - other than them having a dominance in some of their flow at times – was that we obviously kicked some points at the start of that last quarter when we were well in it.

“For the margin to blow out by another five goals is the most frustrating part after working so hard to get to this point.

“We feel like we really prepared well for round one – that was the most disconcerting part of the afternoon.”

Beveridge also clarified the decision to sub off Ryley Sanders and giving Jack Macrae another week at state-league level to continue building back from a hamstring injury.

"He’s fine. At that point in time he was one of a handful that could have come off for experience and stability in the team," Beveridge said.

"Ryley's going really well. He's going to be a tremendous player for the club and he's still learning. But he was the one."

"We'll look after him and make sure he heads into next week with a positive mindset.

"With Jacko, he had a stress-related, through his femur, concern over the pre-season - he worked really hard over his off-season - and then he had that hamstring that he went down with and he missed quite a bit of training and running.

“His capacity to cover the ground needs to be there. I felt like (Melbourne's) midfield were able to do that better than us today.

“So we'll just wait until Jack's totally ready to perform at his absolute best with the ground cover. He’s not far away."