Luke Beveridge spoke to the media following the Club’s two-point win over Geelong on Friday night and westernbulldogs.com.au have listed the five key takeaways
1. About last night
Some wins are more meaningful than others, according to Luke Beveridge.
“Along the way when you’re trying to establish yourself as an outfit that becomes a contender again, you look for those wins that create some cohesion and some strong memories of what you can do together.
“We’ve had them in the past that have set us up for the future and there’s no doubt tonight’s one of those victories where the boys who haven’t played a lot of games together, who are searching for what they can do for each other, how we can gel.
“We’re asking them to play a certain way, to defend a certain way, to use the footy a certain way and ultimately it’s instinctive, the boys are the ones that have to make the decisions under pressure and to see the way we did it tonight as a group, it’s a very meaningful night for us.”'
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2. The debutant
As he said here, Brad Lynch won’t be forgetting his debut senior game any time soon.
“He didn’t look out of place, did he? He’s come a long way, Brad. When he first came to us he was very light, but he’s got great speed and his skill set is pretty strong, but it’s taken him a while to convince us he should make his debut.
“Obviously our attrition rate is pretty high, so there’s been some opportunities open up for one or two of our younger guys.
“It was very encouraging to see the way he played tonight, and the credit to him, I mentioned perseverance. A real credit to him to claw away and get that first game and play so well on a pretty memorable night.”
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3. Guard Dogs
Beveridge talked about how valuable it’s been to have Dale Morris and Marcus Adams back in the side, and the flexibility their presence brings.
“It’s made a huge difference. We haven’t had access to PIcko, to Libba, to Clay, to Moz, probably the four combative, contested type, strong players that teammates feed off. We just haven’t been able to have them in the mix.
“Marcus has had two outstanding starts to the year and then we’ve lost him for the back end, so his last two weeks have been credible and really helped teammates around him, and obviously Dale is really influential in regards to that as I mentioned.
“Having them back there has allowed us to do some different things with our high defenders as well and it’s flowed through the team.”
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4. Duke
It was a vintage Luke Dahlhaus display on Friday night
“It’s one of Luke’s best games.
“I think he played his best footy a year and a half ago and then he got injured and came back, had an outstanding finals serious and (then) we probably just haven’t found Luke’s best for a little while, but tonight I thought he was very, very good.
“He kept the ball in his hands and used it well. He had a role to play, too, he spent some time on Toohey to try and negate his influence a bit, so he had that duel role of being a defensive forward but was able to generate statistically and helped set us up.
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5. What happened to Suckling
Suckling was on the field warming up moments before the opening bounce before he was withdrawn and replaced by Lin Jong, who was also lost to injury early.
“It was a surprise to all of us.
“He trained Wednesday this week, we had Tuesday off for a change, based on the turnaround we thought it was better, and he got through ok.
He pulled up alright, he’s just got this achilles that’s giving him a bit of trouble that just didn’t warm up well enough. Hopefully he’ll be ok next week.
“It wasn’t ideal losing Suckers pre and it wasn’t great losing Lin so early, but we were able to cover it, which was very encouraging.”
