After a promising start but another second half fade-out in an eventual 76 point loss to the Saints, the young Bulldog brigade learned some valuable lessons according to veteran forward Daniel Giansiracusa.

The Western Bulldogs ran out with 12 players with under 50 games of experience, as they have most of the year, compared to a seasoned team in St Kilda, who had only five.

Watch Daniel Giansiracusa's full press conference on the media player above.

Giansiracusa said that although the team was handed a lesson in hardness around the contest by the Saints, his younger, inexperienced teammates weren’t to blame.

“I think there were times on the weekend that my effort dropped as well, I don’t think it’s the younger players, as a whole,” he said.

Sustaining effort for the full four quarters has been a challenge for the inexperienced Dogs but one the team is willing to attack head-on.

View Daniel Giansiracusa's player profile and Season 2012 stats here.

“We’re not doing it for long enough and that’s the challenge we face,” Giansiracusa said.

“I was really proud of the guys in the first half, our contested ball was right up, but for reasons, it did drop away.”

“We come to work on a Monday and try to figure out why that happened, and we’ll go into North Melbourne hoping to do it for longer,” he said.

Giansiracusa said the focus for the leadership group for the remainder of the year was to set high standards for developing players and provide constant feedback and support.

“It’s vitally important… for us [leaders] to show the way,” he said.

“At times we probably haven’t done that this year, but we’re trying as hard as we can and each week we go out there with an example to set and we try to keep those standards at a high level… I know that will pay off in the long run.”