The Western Bulldogs will continue to believe they can have a strong say in the finals race, despite missing another opportunity to secure a precious win against an AFL premiership contender. 

The Bulldogs led premiership fancy Geelong by six goals at quarter time of their Round 14 clash at Metricon Stadium on Friday night, but the Cats fought back to eventually win by 11 points.

It followed similar spirited showings against top four aspirants Brisbane and Port Adelaide recently.

As it stands, the Bulldogs haven’t been able to notch a win against a current top eight team so far in the 2020 season.

The Dogs will now likely need to win their remaining three games of the season against West Coast, Hawthorn and Fremantle, to claim a spot in the 2020 finals.

On Friday night Geelong worked their way into the contest after a goalless first quarter, taking advantage of a weakened Bulldogs outfit which lost speedster Laitham Vandermeer and experienced defender Easton Wood to hamstring injuries by half time.

“The loss will give us belief that we can beat the better teams.  With a fully fit 22 for four quarters, I think we’re in business, but it hurt us in the end,” Dogs’ coach Luke Beveridge said after the game.

“Credit to Geelong.  They fought their way back, as we expected them to.

“I’m really proud of the boys that they really made them fight.  It’ll do us the world of good to know we can get that close.

“We won’t get down on ourselves.  We’re still sniffing around.  We’ll recover well and we look forward to the challenge against the Eagles.”

The loss of Vandermeer and Wood caused a re-shuffle of the Bulldogs’ system, and the extra workload took its toll in the final stages against a seasoned Geelong side.

“With the two down, we needed a number of players to spend a lot more time on the ground,” Beveridge said.

“You don’t quite get the intensity at times, and I think it told.

“We were defending admirably at times.  It just ended up being too much.”