Senior coach Luke Beveridge takes a look at some of the key talking points ahead of the Bulldogs’ clash with North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Four changes
“Obviously, we’re only 4-5 on the win/loss ratio, but most of our games we’ve been in there with a chance, you look at it from a systematic view and things have been okay. A handful of boys at times haven’t been going so well with their direct involvements in the game, but we’ve persisted with them and their output over a number of weeks, so it’s probably time to break the circuit and give them a chance to get their form back.
“There’s a number of boys who’ve been banging the door down in recent weeks to come up, so we need to give them an opportunity.”
Pat Lipinski
“Patty has mostly been a wing/forward for us since he’s come to the Club. There are a few things that Pat’s been working on. This whole start to the VFL season he’s played as an inside-mid and we’ve been rapt with his progress there and how he’s blossoming, so we’ll have him as an inside-mid at AFL level, we’re sure he’ll do pretty well.
“He’s a good runner, Patty and he deserves his chance.”
TEAM NEWS | Dogs swing the changes
Our defensive game
“We were going pretty well defensively, until the Geelong game. I was alluding to the fact that they scored too easily. We had reasonable pressure around the ball for most of the night, but we did get beaten one-on-one a lot.
“Our defenders had a difficult night there’s no doubt, they had been pretty solid. We’ve made some adjustments there. The height factor is something that we talk about week to week, but we’ve got a solid representation down there this week and we expect our midfielders to be quite productive and prolific in there and make sure the pressure’s on and our forwards will fall into line as well.”
Facing Ben Brown
“He is a concern for most teams in that his highest point stuff is pretty good. He gets up the ground and covers a lot of ground as well, so we’ll need help at times. Whoever might be standing him at any point in time will need assistance in there, we’ll endeavour to do that.
“We hope to get our hands on the ball and starve them a little but and make sure we create those avenues to goal.”
