Over the past 18 months Senior Coach Brendan McCartney has often spoken of his long term vision for the Western Bulldogs – do the basics right, develop your own talent and build towards a brand of football that stands up in finals.

While Saturday’s loss to Gold Coast has provided some inevitable external criticism, McCartney is confident the internal message has never been clearer and is adamant in staying true to course.

“Every opportunity is a [learning] opportunity, it is an opportunity that sometimes you take and other times you don’t, we have got to take the advantage of those experiences and build on them,” McCartney said.

“We are very clear in how we want our young people to learn how to play and the type of players we want them to become.

“We know where we are at and we know that we have got a lot of work in front of us – we haven’t shyed away from that for almost 18 months now.”

Building towards a game plan that relies on team defence, McCartney’s stamp on the Bulldogs’ game plan was evident after the first season, as the Club progressively began to win the clearance count and contented possessions each game.

The next step this year is for the Bulldogs to leverage the first touch to move the ball and score, which McCartney admits the young team needs to become more consistent at.

“The best teams in this competition do most of their scoring off the back of their defence and we are teaching that heavily,” he said.

“At times we are quick kicking it when we could use it by hand, that is a work in progress, but what you can’t throw out is what you’ve nailed and do very well.

“You’ve got to use it to lever more opportunities to move the ball.”

While McCartney said the Club was frustrated with the results so far this season, he can see more competitive performances on the horizon, as the Bulldogs learn to play out the full four quarters.

“[The players] are at the stage when they want to perform better, we all are, we are disappointed with our results but we are very clear about where we are going,” he said.

“Outside our club not everyone might see that… [but] internally we believe we are a lot closer to some better results.”