A lift in intensity and work rate saw Tory Dickson play his best game for the season, kicking four goals in Footscray’s dominant win.

Returning to the VFL to work on his pressure and repeat efforts, the 26-year-old was impressive as a defensive forward, creating multiple scoring opportunities with his tackling in the forward 50.

“The four goals are nice but it’s not what I was there to kind of do,” Dickson said.

“Obviously the team had such a good win, there wasn’t many positions that were lost over the whole ground.

“I went back [to the VFL] pretty much to improve my tackling and my pressure and that’s what is going to get me a game, it’s not the goals it’s pretty much all to do with that.”

Dickson’s focus heading into the game was to show coaches and teammates alike that he can do the little things.

“It was probably one of the better games in terms of tackling pressure that I’d had pretty much the whole preseason, which is probably what I wanted to strive to do,” he said.

“I think I had about six or seven tackles which was a real positive and that was one of the real things I tried to improve for this game.

“Off the back of that with work rate etc and some good ball use from the mids… I got a few goals out of it.”