After missing five weeks through injury, athletic defender Easton Wood was given a tough initiation back into the senior AFL ranks by lining up on dual Brownlow medallist Adam Goodes in the 82 point loss to Sydney yesterday.

Despite having only 40 career games under his belt, Wood was one of the more experienced players helping marshal in defence - tested further at times in the second half when both Brian Lake and Robert Murphy shifted forward.    

“It was a very tough game - it is nice to be back but it would be nice to be putting a better four quarters together,” Wood said. 

“We cracked in hard for the first quarter and then it slipped away from there so we will have a look at that during the week.”

Reflective of the greater Bulldogs line-up, the back six were solid early, restricting Sydney to three goals in the first quarter but as the game progressed dropped off in intensity.

While providing plenty of run and carry out of defence in the first half, the relatively inexperienced outfit could only muster 12 rebound 50m in the final two terms.

“We need to focus on being strong around the ball for the full four quarters and we need to focus on our work rate going forward as well,” Wood said.

“It was good early on but that seems to be lacking later in games.

“We have been encouraged to take the game on and we need to do that and will continue to address that.

“That really suffered late in the game as well and is one of the reasons why we fell away.”

Happy to get through the game uninjured, Wood is looking to string some solid performances together in the final two rounds and is still hopeful of cementing a win.

“We just want to put some competitive performances in and it would be nice to get over the line in a game - but would be happy with a full four quarter effort,” he said.