WESTERN Bulldogs coach Brendan McCartney has revealed that when he started at Whitten Oval he believed the side needed to improve in all areas of the game.

Although acknowledging, as he has all pre-season, that the Dogs had "done a lot right" before his arrival, McCartney identified three broad, interlinked elements that required serious work.

McCartney's remedial plan for the Dogs revolved around the basics: winning more contested ball, getting it back from the opposition quicker, and using the ball smarter.

"We've put them in drills where they've had to make those decisions and deal with it under high pressure and levels of fatigue," he said. "We'll get evaluated on that pretty soon."

The contested-ball focus has been noted by all who have seen a Bulldogs training session under the new regime.

"The game is played from the contest out, so our coaching group's feeling is that ... you need to know what to do in a contest," McCartney explained.

"There's an intensity factor there, there's an understanding of where to position yourselves around the ball and then make the right decisions away from it.

"We'd like to be seen as a club that's pretty strong around the ball, and organised around the ball, but be good in all areas of the game too."

McCartney said concern players being too gung-ho in the NAB Cup wasn't an issue.

"I'm aware of it, yeah," he said. "But it's a game of football, it's AFL football, albeit in February.

"Good habits are best learnt from day one and practiced, and bad habits can sneak in pretty quickly too ... we want to develop good habits.

"And we want our older players and our more experienced players to develop our younger players. And we want our young players to see how the game should be played from day one.

"Does that mean we'll be playing seriously? When the ball bounces, I expect our boys to be hard at the ball and do what they're asked to do.

"We get a chance to see pressure on our players at a level that hasn’t been there throughout the summer."