Luke Beveridge spoke to the media following the Bulldogs’ 63-point loss to Hawthorn on Saturday night. Here, westernbulldogs.com.au takes a look at some of the key takeaways.
The wrap
Luke Beveridge unpacks how the Dogs night turned sour after half time against the Hawks.
“They upped the ante and we just couldn’t go with them. We were pulling all sorts of levers trying to arrest the momentum and get some kind of control and unfortunately, I think they surprised us with their intensity and their level of contest in that third quarter, and put us on the back foot.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t recover through organic mechanisms on the ground and the numbers game wasn’t helping either, and to their credit they scored pretty freely, and even though we’d been beaten by some good sides this year, I don’t think any team has done that to us in a quarter.
“We were obviously enormously concerned about our output but at the same time it probably taught a fair contingent of our players a little bit of a lesson in what you can do if you really get on the foot.
“So, disappointed but I think our boys will walk away from tonight knowing that even though you feel like you’re going ok, you can’t rest on your laurels against a team with abit of maturity who can show you another gear you didn’t know they had.”
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A tale of two halves
The Dogs have won four of 15 third quarters this year and just two second halves.
“I’ve been talking a lot about sustainability and trying to play four quarters and it’s part of a young side’s journey to do that. And that’s why tonight’s even more deflating because we’ve had a couple of weeks where our four quarters have been a little bit more consistent.
“The more mature teams are just getting the better of us. It happened against Melbourne, it happened against Collingwood, but the promising thing is it didn’t happen against North or Geelong, so we can do it week to week so we just need to keep this young group up.
“They’ve been tremendous to this point in time. We’ll dust ourselves off and focus on Melbourne but I think it’s party just a maturity thing because they know what they want to achieve, it’s just being able to feel at home for four quarters.”
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Injury update
Both Aaron Naughton and Lachie Hunter looked to be under an injury cloud at different points in the game.
“Naughts has got an ankle injury but it’s hopefully not too bad but obviously he’s pretty sore. Lachie’s ok, he’s got a knock on the knee, he should be alright.”
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Dunkley
Beveridge has been pleased with the progress in Josh Dunkley’s game.
“I thought he did pretty well, Dunks. You can see the fight in him and he doesn’t want to be beaten. (Tom) Mitchell’s a prolific player, I think he still had nine clearances or something but most of them were under extreme pressure.
“He was getting buffeted and bumped off the ball, Dunks, but he was fighting through it and I really liked the way he went about it.
It’s been good for him and it’s been good for us because we haven’t got a great deal of depth through our midfield at the moment due to injury, so for Josh to play a key role in there, it’s quite critical for us.
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Wallis
Mitch Wallis was the Club’s leading goal kicker on Saturday night, with three, to go with 16 touches and six clearances.
“He’s been pretty good forward, and he’s hit the scoreboard, Mitchy. Continually trying to grow that hybrid game, and he’s been pretty good Wal, over the last few weeks.
“It’s important for us to find lads that are going to finish for us. There’s some promising signs there kicking three.”
