Western Bulldogs 1.0 4.5 10.5 14.5.89 St. Kilda 6.5 11.6 13.9 17.14.116
Goals
Western Bulldogs: Dale 5, Dickson 4, Lloyd 2, Schache, English, R. Smith St. Kilda: Lonie 4, Membrey 4, Clark 2, Billings 2, Parker, Newnes, Gresham, Langlands, Bruce
Alex Docherty’s Best
Western Bulldogs: Dunkley, Dale, Crozier, Wood, Dickson, Macrae St. Kilda: Lonie, Clark, Billings, Marshall, Dunstan, Carlisle, Gresham
Never mind the so-called ‘caretaker curse’ that’s been all the hype in 2019. Never mind the fact that it’s now three caretaker coaches that have won their first game in charge this season. Let it sink in that the Western Bulldogs essentially threw away any last chance they had to play Finals football this year. St. Kilda handed them a football lesson on Sunday evening and it would take something miraculous from here to even be in with a chance.
Even if they win the last five games of the season – and that’s a massive if at best – this team proved in less than 30 minutes that they don’t deserve to be in September this year. The 30 minutes I’m talking about is the first quarter. They needed to make a statement here and after they got the opening goal of the match inside the first minute of the game, they were nowhere to be found.
There were so many uncharacteristic errors, both when they had the ball in hand and when St. Kilda had the ball. I don’t think you people need me to tell you how many times players like Jack Macrae and Matt Suckling turning the footy over in the first half or that on more than one occasion, multiple Bulldog players crashed into each other in the air when the ball was in dispute or that there were so many Saints forwards that got open out the back and got easy opportunities at goal.
It’s these types of things that made me feel pissed off as a supporter. Without trying to discredit the Saints, because they definitely played a great brand of football, this was one of these games that the Bulldogs needed to stand up and deliver and the fact that they couldn’t when there was so much at stake tells me they’re not ready yet.
Now to give credit where it’s due, St. Kilda were a side that looked like they wanted it more and the scoreboard reflected it by quarter time. After Tory Dickson’s goal in the first quarter, the Saints piled on 11 scoring shots in a row and could’ve easily found themselves up by more than 35 points by the first break. I haven’t even mentioned the number of sloppy free kicks that the Dogs gave away as well in the opening term. Some will blame the umpires, but they’ll reward the players first to the ball. That’s how it has always been, and the Saints were first to the ball often for the first half.
The effort was better in the second half, they won the third quarter to bring the margin back to a gettable 22 points after being down 43 at half time. But unfortunately, playing catch up only gets you so far in football. And given that the Dogs have already been playing catch-up in the run to September, they can only get away with so much and the Saints exposed them greatly on Sunday evening.
The Bulldogs were their own worst enemy, the skill errors and the leaky defence hung around all evening and unravelled all their good work across the past five weeks, which is very disappointing. The record against the six teams below the Bulldogs now is quite damning and it’ll be the reason why they won’t play Finals this year. This loss makes it four from seven games against sides in the bottom six. It’s plain and simple – not good enough.
Without trying to sound too critical, there wasn’t many players that had great games. I won’t list them off here, but there would be a few people that would have to be nervous come selection night. From watching Footscray’s VFL team earlier on in the day, I still don’t understand why Bailey Williams was dropped or why Rhylee West can’t get a debut game. I’m certain Dale Morris would be ready to come back into the team as well after a few weeks in the VFL and Ed Richards surely comes back in after he was taken out of the team due to hamstring tightness.
Leading The Way
Out of those who were the better players, Josh Dunkley had himself another lazy 38 disposals, as well as earning eight clearances. But it wasn’t the same impact that he had last Sunday against Melbourne – he only laid five tackles and had three marks for the match which are down from his season averages (He averages 4.4 marks and 6.3 tackles per game). I thought Macrae got better after half time, and that’s what I like about him – he just goes with it, but I’m sure he’d have his time over again if he had the chance – he finished with 34 disposals, seven marks, six tackles and seven clearances
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Bailey Dale kicked a career-best five goals and whilst one can argue two of them came at a time when the game was practically sealed up, he didn’t stop trying and at least he paid back the faith that the selectors put in him with a nice game, because I for one was scratching my head when I saw his name in the team Friday night. Tory Dickson also kicked a bag of four goals in what was his best game this season – he came up with some big time goals in stages that the Dogs needed them.
Lastly, need to list some of the defenders that – without them – would’ve been a much more embarrassing result and I’m talking like a 10-plus goal game. Easton Wood (23 disposals, 10 marks) showed signs of his All-Australian year in 2015, defensively, he lead by example in the contests and took a few nice intercept grabs. Hayden Crozier (21 disposals, seven marks and seven rebound 50s) is piecing together a very nice year and is arguably one of the better recruits over the past few years. Like Wood, he wasn’t afraid to fly for a spoil, but he also provided good drive out of half back.
The Opposition
A lot of St. Kilda’s better players came from their younger players.
Jack Lonie set the tone in the opening quarter, kicking three of his four goals in the first term and ended up kicking 4.3 from 20 disposals and eight marks – could’ve easily had six or seven if he kicked straighter. Hunter Clark (26 disposals, six marks and two goals) had one of his best games in his young career, whilst Jack Billings (27 disposals, eight marks, four clearances and two goals) was again very good in the middle.
Rowan Marshall (21 disposals, six marks, 32 hitouts and five inside 50s) has quickly emerged as one of the best young ruckmen in the game. I enjoyed watching him and Tim English go head to head in the ruck and I’m sure we’ll get many more of those contests down the line. On Sunday I gave Marshall the points, he had more disposals, more hitouts and just edged English in his influence around the ground.
Jake Carlisle (18 disposals, eight marks and four rebound 50s) was instrumental in defence. Him and Nathan Brown did the good job on limiting the influences of Aaron Naughton and Josh Schache before he went down with a nasty concussion. In addition to the work of Clark and Billings in the middle, I thought Jade Gresham (22 disposals, six clearances and a goal) and Luke Dunstan (22 disposals, seven clearances and five tackles) were also very good.