Hi,

Didn't see an official autopsy thread. Pls delete or merge if there is one. I will also be posting this with Mongrel Punt.


The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I?m in a toxic relationship. The Western Bulldogs keep hurting me but I just can?t walk away.

They are my ride or die.


The Good

There were flashes of what the Dogs are capable of - quick ball movement, good decision making and giving the forwards a chance with clean delivery to the forward line.

A few debutants for the club played well and contributed ? Gallagher, Bramble and Sanders.

JJ showed flashes of his best, Rhylee West with some solid contributions, only if he could have taken that speccy!

Weightman was busy and was a great connector with the tall forwards.

JUH was a consistent option up forward, with sticky hands.


The Bad

The most obvious - goal kicking. Johnno?s got his work cut out. Normal reliable kicks such as Weightman and English missing gettable goals and JUH was still erratic in front of goals.

The skills were just not there to navigate through congestion quickly to give clean forward fifty entries, one too many handballs, fumbles and smothered kicks led to momentum changes and snowballed into the Dee?s forwards getting too many clean looks.

The three talls setup failed yet again to fire, with JUH the only one to give the Dees backline trouble.

The inability of the forwards to keep the ball inside forward 50 crippled the dogs aim of building enough pressure on the Dees backline to cause mistakes. When the ball hit the deck in the forward 50, the Dees easily took possession and set up another offensive thrust to a beleaguered Dogs defence.


The UGLY


Where to Start?


The (maybe) Million Dollar man in the middle got taught a lesson by Max Gawn. Tim English could have been affected by a big collision early in the game because after that, Gawn did what he wanted. Winning taps and clearances at will and being a huge pain in the backside for down the line kicks. English could be omitted for the next game for soreness and give the dogs a chance to look at a ruck tandem of Lobb and Sam Darcy.

Some bad skill errors from a ?senior? player like Lachy McNeil, who should and must be dropped after some unforgivable fumbles and stray kicks which lead directly to Melbourne scoring opportunities. Those were coach killers that destroyed momentum and would have lead to a Dogs supporters meltdown on Social Media.

The selection of two KPDs. There were plenty of pros and cons discussion about having Buku Khamis playing the third tall/interceptor role against Ben Brown. Buku started well but with fast break footy, sometimes Ben Brown was covered by a half back flanker. Seeing Richards competing with Brown in the first quarter made me want to throw the remote at the tv.

Too many times, all the defenders jumped at the high ball, with the smart small forwards of the Dees waiting for the crumb and easy goal.
The question is, should the Dogs persist? A costly turnover by Buku in the fourth quarter could have made their decision easier.

Naughton after an early goal and mark was a non factor. He didn?t do anything of significance until he was a part of scoring chain late in the game.

The pet peeve of Dogs supporters of the coaching panel from last year seems to still not have been rectified in anyway. The inability to stop a run of goals by opposition, puzzling selections and a lack of changing the gameplan to allow the Dogs to get back in the game.


To backseat coach, here are some obvious tweaks to the gameplan that could have made a difference.



  • James Harmes was brought in to fill in the void of having a tagger if needed. An opposition midfielder was out of control (Clayton Oliver) yet again but not even a whiff of a change in how to curb his influence.




  • Naughton was giving the Dogs nothing, perhaps swap him with Khamis? Bailey Dale was awful in defence with some careless possessions, move him to the forward line of even the wing. I mean as someone once said??DO SOMETHING!?




  • Subbing of Sanders. I hope that it was because Sanders couldn?t run out the game because if anyone needed to be subbed it was either McNeil or Vandermeer or even Lobb (who is in real danger of being dropped for Sam Darcy if English is good to go for the next round).




Changes for the next game against the Suns.



  • With O?Donnell entering concussion protocol, Khamis may keep his spot, King has Jones to deal with and Coffield should be able to handle Casboult.
  • Otherwise there?s always break in case of emergency Keith or Gardner.
  • McNeil and Vandermeer should be a direct swap with Bedendo (4 goals) and Daniel, Darcy for Lobb and Macrae for Dale.



If the Dogs lose to the Suns, the ?Fire the Coach? drums will be getting louder for Beveridge.