WESTERN Bulldogs defender Tom Williams cut a lonely figure as he ventured around the MCG changerooms late on Friday night.

His teammates were showering, taking ice baths and receiving physiotherapy for the physical bruises they received against the Hawks.

The mental scarring might take a bit longer to heal, as it has for the 22-year-old in coming to terms with the fact he won't play again this year after succumbing to a persistent thigh problem.

It can't have been easy for Williams to watch the match, given he was for weeks touted as the man who could stop Coleman Medallist Lance Franklin.

Without the burly defender in the side the task was left to the smaller Dale Morris and full-back Brian Lake. And despite the best efforts of the pair, Buddy ended the game with eight goals to his name.

"He's just a superstar," coach Rodney Eade marvelled after the performance.

"The way he played, if we'd played very well, we still might not have won with the way he turned it on."

So often this year Morris has been Eade's 'fix-it' man; the player who the coach has called on to halt the most dangerous of forwards, despite the fact that most of the time it requires him to play way above his size.

And Lake, last year's club best and fairest winner, has been a reliable servant of the club.

But a freight train couldn't have stopped Franklin on Friday night as the freakish goal-kicker delighted in the finals atmosphere and made every one of the 76,703-strong crowd in attendance feel the thrill of September football.

"It was a big ask for Dale, and I thought Brian acquitted himself extremely well,but it probably showed up in Brian's poor intensity in the first half that he was able to go back and compete well with the best player in the competition," Eade said.

"He beat him one-on-one on quite a few occasions, and I think Brian's got to take that leadership role and do that every week."

After the game the Bulldogs rooms were virtually silent. It was hard to believe their season hadn't ended on the MCG surface minutes earlier.

Williams loitered around the rooms in his suit and tie, playing with footballs and fiddling with bottles of sports drink. He even played with the weighing scales at one stage as his comrades washed off the blood, sweat and tears.

He looked relaxed, albeit a little sombre given the mood of the rooms.

Perhaps he was just relieved it wasn't him that was asked to stop the powerful machine that is Lance Franklin. 

But given how shattered the young player – whose short career has cruelly been affected by injury too often – was last week, it's likely he was simply wishing Eade had been given the chance to analyse his performance against the centurion.