Luke Beveridge spoke to the media following the Club’s 57-point loss to Port Adelaide on Thursday night and westernbulldogs.com.au have listed the five key takeaways.
1. Bulldogs fight
The Dogs gave the home side a five goal head start but were stoic and determined for the rest of the match, despite having a number of players go down to injury.
“Other than the first quarter… the injury toll, we don’t make excuses, but I was really proud of the way they fought their way through it. There were a few goals in junk time there at the end, and if we carve the first quarter off, it’s a reasonably close game.
“Two men down for most of the game, probably younger men playing against more experienced, stronger-bodied players, I thought our boys had a real go.
“It was a pretty nightmarish night as far as the injury toll went, we had players out there who shouldn’t have been, we were two down, but they really fought hard.”
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2. Injury update
The Dogs lost Easton Wood and Jack Macrae during the second quarter to hamstring injuries, the Dogs’ casualties didn’t stop there. Beveridge provided an early update on who’s likely to miss next week and beyond, but had some good news on Marcus Bontempelli.
Easton Wood: “Easton will be out for a while. We’ll need to assess it but he’ll be out for a long time I’d say, so they’ll scan that hamstring. It’s the one on the other side. He hurt his hamstring against Brisbane a while ago – it’s not the same injury but it’s on the other leg up high.
Jack Macrae: “He just turned in the second quarter and felt (his hamstring) a little bit. It was too big a risk. Felt like he could probably still go but we had to sit him down. We didn’t want to lose him for six to eight, we might lose him for two to three, but we’ll see.
Lukas Webb: “Broken thumb. He’ll need surgery on that tomorrow so he’ll be out for two or three weeks.”
Tom Boyd: “Compound dislocation of a finger, so he’ll be out.”
Marcus Bontempelli: “We think he will be alright with the hyper-extension of his knee. He was very ginger afterwards so he sort of lost his impact and he’d been very influential in getting us back in the game.
Toby McLean: “Got through but he probably shouldn’t have been out there after he copped that first hit.”
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3. The good news
Despite the final scoreline, there was some encouraging signs from a number of players, with Ed Richards’ three-goal second quarter a highlight.
“There was some really encouraging things from Ed Richards, Patty Lipinski and Josh Schache was better in the second half.
“Tommy Boyd fought hard in the ruck, Roarke Smith was a lot better tonight and I thought Hayden Crozier played an outstanding game down back.
“Jackson Trengove, I thought was outstanding. He played out the whole game because he had to, but he was superb against his old team.
“So there were a lot of real positives in there on a really, really difficult night. And I hope our supporters hang their hat on that a little bit and understand what’s transpiring.”
