Western Bulldogs senior coach Luke Beveridge says his side’s inefficiency is what hurt them the most in Sunday’s 13-point loss to Essendon.

The Bulldogs kicked 12.12 from 60 inside 50s, compared to their counterparts who finished with 15.7 from 39 forward-50 forays.

“We were really inefficient, and they were efficient - that was largely the game,” Beveridge told media over Zoom post-match.

“They were too clean out of centre bounce, and the kicking to their forwards was very, very good. We don’t usually put our backs under that much pressure, but we couldn’t defend big Peter Wright and he kicked extraordinarily well.

“We didn’t tackle like we usually tackle either, so it’s another inefficiency and just the quality of Essendon’s game in the end enabled them to outlast us. All credit to them.”

Beveridge said as frustrating as the Bulldogs’ conversion rate was, he has faith his group can rectify it when they face Hawthorn. 

“To our players’ credit we kept coming, even late there was still a little bit of a sniff,” he said.

“At the end of that third quarter there were a few heartbreakers, just to even possibly put our noses in front, but ultimately we shouldn’t be missing from that close to goal with the method and amount of times we train it.

“Our guys know what’s happened – if you highlight it too much it can batten down the hatches, but we won’t do that – we’ll come out next week and hopefully be more efficient and finish off our work.

“To have 60 inside 50s to 39 and lose the game by that small margin – it’s hard to process.”

Details of the Bulldogs’ round 22 match will be confirmed throughout the week.