A slow start by the Western Bulldogs led to their 50 point defeat but Marcus Bontempelli can see the positives from Sunday’s game against North Melbourne.
The 18-year-old said while the Kangaroos held the momentum in the first quarter, the Bulldogs better dealt with their swift ball movement and pace in the second term.
“It was hot from the word go, the way North Melbourne like to play a run and gun sort of game, they get a lot of drive from their half back,” Bontempelli said.
“They move the ball really quickly, so from the start we knew they were going to do that and we probably weren’t switched on straight away to try to stop that - it gave them a good head start really.
“We tightened it up in the second quarter and a bit of the third but in the end I think they got the better of us with their pace and speed.”
The Bulldogs produced ten scoring shots to North’s three in the second term but inefficiency prevented the Bulldogs from a bigger score going into half time – kicking six behinds.
Bontempelli said Coach McCartney’s half time review however was largely positive, urging his players to apply the same intensity and game plan across the entire game.
“We came in at half time really positive about the second quarter and knew that going in that was the way we needed to play,” he said.
“By doing that in the second quarter… to knuckle down and get the repeat stoppages and just slow the game down, we did that we probably just couldn’t stick to it in the second half.”
Controlling the tempo of the game in the second and third terms was a positive to come out of the game and Bontempelli said it is something the young group will draw on in future.
“It’s probably a key message for most teams, when you find the opposition team gets a bit of momentum to know what the game needs and know that the game needs to be slowed down a little bit – to find a mark and slow it up,” he said.
“With the young group we’ve got, we are still developing that and we are doing everything we can to fix that up for the next few years.”
Bontempelli continued to demonstrate why he is one of the favourites to take out the 2014 Rising Star Award, named as one of the Bulldogs best with 23 touches and two goals.
