BULLDOGS coach Rodney Eade has questioned why his side had to come off a six-day break after having the bye two weeks ago.

The Bulldogs fronted up for their clash with Collingwood six days after their previous encounter with Fremantle and their round four bye.

Eade said he could not figure out why his side was given a Monday game after having a week off.

"It's the vagaries of the draw. You can't do much about that. Most other teams who have a bye played Thursday and we've got to play on the Monday," Eade said after Sunday's loss to the Magpies.

"It puts us a bit behind the eight-ball but anyway that's what happens and we've got to regroup and make sure we've got fresh players playing next week."

The Bulldogs lost by 48 points but had several decent passages where they took the game up to Collingwood.

They booted the first three goals of the game and even leveled the scores at one stage after a four-goal run over the third and fourth terms.

But they went missing for large chunks throughout the game, drawing a mixed response from the coach.

"It's an interesting one isn't it? I spoke to the players about that. It was mixed what to say to them. It was certainly disappointing the way we finished and disappointing to lose by that much. And we had some lapses in the second quarter but I suppose I was encouraged by the start," he said.

"It's just disappointing to let them get eight goals in that last 25 minutes. We need to take stock of that. There were some positives with it and there were some negatives with it. "

The Bulldogs went without a goal from the 12-minute mark of the first term through to the 19-minute mark of the third, causing significant frustration in the coaches box.

"We probably didn't get it in there much in the second quarter. Some of our kicks going in were horrendous basic errors. Even with a slippery ball when guys were free and we'd kick into the man on the mark. We didn't give our forwards a real chance," Eade said.

The Bulldogs will be buoyed for next week's clash with the Sydney Swans by the return from injury of Ben Hudson and Daniel Giansiracusa. But forwards Barry Hall and Shaun Higgins will have to wait at least one more week before they return.