Western Bulldogs accused of wasting golden era



The Bulldogs loss to Sydney has brought them back to the pack of the battle for finals, but with the depth of talent available to Luke Beveridge, have he and the club missed their window?

Luke Beveridge's Western Bulldogs have been accused of squandering a top-four list as the premiership coach is forced into another rejig of his besieged backline.

The Dogs could be out of the eight by the end of the round after coughing up an inexplicable loss to Sydney despite dominating hit-outs, inside-50s and clearances as Tim English, Aaron Naughton and Marcus Bontempelli ran amok.

Josh Bruce (19 disposals, eight marks) looks set to replace James O'Donnell (concussion) after a strong VFL hitout against Sydney on Friday afternoon, while Rory Lobb (15 disposals, 10 hit-outs) should replace Sam Darcy.

Darcy stayed in Sydney on Thursday night to be assessed after the corked quad bled heavily and was in a knee brace and on crutches out of extra precaution.

The Dogs said his only injury was the corked quad, which saw him subbed out in the third quarter.

He is likely to miss multiple weeks in his latest setback this season alone after a hole in his lung and broken jaw this year and a foot stress fracture that saw his debut delayed last season.

Bailey Smith will have recovered from a flu that saw him missing against Sydney by Monday, when the players return to Whitten Oval, and will play against the Dons.

But his diminishing returns pushed to half forward are representative of a team that is not quite as good as the sum of its parts.

The club's chief executive Ameet Bains said on July 1 the club had the makings of a top-four list, adamant it was stacked with talent.

Yeah we do. They haven't all played consistently at the level but if you look at the nucleus of that team Tim, Marcus, a few other players, they are going as well as anyone in the competition. You build a side around that.

But leading analyst David King wondered after the loss whether the Dogs were frittering away their talent in a year where they would have to replicate their 2016 heroics to win the flag.

Let's cut to the chase. They have got one of the games greatest players for the last decade in their team, they are well supported forward of centre with good talls, got a good system, been around the mark for a couple of years now,? he told FoxFooty.

Are they frittering away a great list? A great opportunity because they could find themselves out of the eight after round 18. You wouldn't have thought that would have been the case.

They are hard to win and they bucked the trend in 2016 but the only way to win them is finish top four and they haven?t done that and how they haven?t done that no one knows?

They are well led by the captain. Their midfield is super strong, they have a high handball game which seems to work and they can't defend. Without Liam Jones down there they looked a little rudderless. I don't have the answer and I don't know if Luke has the answer of their hierarchy but this is a top four list at minimum.