Midfield pressure will stifle Buddy, says Lake

BULLDOGS defender Brian Lake says the key to stopping Hawthorn forward Lance Franklin is to put pressure on the Hawks’ midfield.

Franklin starred last time the two teams met booting eight goals in Hawthorn’s 51-point win in last year’s qualifying final.

Lake spent time on Franklin that night and said the key to avoiding a repeat performance this week was to cut off his supply.

“Buddy had a great year last year and we just couldn’t contain him. He was too big and agile and he was pretty much unstoppable,” Lake told westernbulldogs.com.au.

“I did go on him in the second half of that game and they gave it to him cleanly. It’s not just us in the backline, it’s also up to the midfielders to put the pressure on and to limit the opportunities and put pressure on the kicks coming in to make our job a little bit easier.”

Lake is likely to spend at least some time on Franklin this week but he says he has not spent the lead-up studying him too closely.

“I won’t go and sit in the coach’s office or the backline coach’s office and watch hours of tape. I watched a bit of footage during the week but when you’ve played on a guy a couple of times you sort of know how they play anyway,” he said.

“It’s more about how the ball is coming in. He’s moving around a bit more, he’s working up the ground. There’s no doubt I’ll have him for a bit of time but they’ve also got Jarryd Roughead up there who you’ve got to monitor as well.”

While Lake says there has been no discussion of using last year’s disappointing loss as motivation, there would be plenty of Bulldogs keen to atone for the defeat.

“It hasn’t really been mentioned but it would be sticking in the back of a lot of guys’ minds. I know it sticks in mine,” he said.

“They did embarrass us that night and while this isn’t redemption because they won the premiership, we know what we did wrong and that first final we played wasn’t up to scratch. To beat the reigning premiers would be a great bonus for us.”

Hawthorn’s has made a poor start to 2009 but despite the lack of results the Bulldogs would not be taking them lightly.

“They are still reigning premiers,” Lake said. “They are still a team to beat. No doubt they’ve got some injuries but they’ve still got some quality players up forward, in the midfield and down back.”