Lake experiment may give the Bulldogs the missing piece of jigsaw

Lake experiment may give the Bulldogs the missing piece of jigsaw

Garry Lyon | August 19, 2009

The Western Bulldogs should try Brian Lake as a swingman before the finals.

THE widely held belief in football is that the Western Bulldogs are still a ''power forward'' away from the second AFL premiership in their 84-year history.

Coach Rodney Eade, quite reasonably, can turn around and point to the fact that the Dogs, as of right now, are the heaviest-scoring team in the competition after 20 completed rounds of football.

That they are getting by quite nicely, without a recognised ''traditional'' key position forward, by sharing the load among an extremely talented and skilful group of medium-sized forwards who continue to get the job done, week in week out.

They have seven players who have kicked 20 or more goals for the season. Compare that to the ladder leader, St Kilda, which has four. Further to that, they have another seven players who are in double figures. Again, two more than the Saints, with five.

Rest of article...

Gary, Gary, Gary, how many games has Ryan Hargrave played & you till can't get his name right? :rolleyes: It's not Hargreaves!!!!

It's not really a new suggestion, but still one that has its merits. Not sure if we can afford it though for large parts of the game, especially with Tom going down. I would still like to see it at some stage though.

Gary if you wan't to coach then fine please go away and help some other club....I'm more than happy to leave the planning for our club to Rodney!!

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Originally Posted by western monkey

Gary if you wan't to coach then fine please go away and help some other club....I'm more than happy to leave the planning for our club to Rodney!!

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Here Here. Don't know what it is, but can't stand the guy.

Hmm..this sounds like it'll fall on deaf ears. Supporters have wanted to see it for sometime, doesn't mean we can afford to try it coming into the finals without a tall Tommy to stay down back and take Lakes opponent. It wasn't really trialed this year (except that horrible moment vs carlton), so I dont think now is the right time to be doing it..especially when we're fighting for top 4.

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Originally Posted by The Coon Dog

Gary, Gary, Gary, how many games has Ryan Hargrave played & you till can't get his name right? :rolleyes: It's not Hargreaves!!!!

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Probaly the first article Lyon has written specifically about the Bulldogs since Daniel Hargreaves was running around :rolleyes:

This piece smacks of Lyon attempting to showcase his potential future coaching credentials via his print media commitments, which he is currently working on a 10-point plan as follows:

Step 1 - Have a quiet chat to your very good mates, who run the Melbourne Football Club

Step 2 - Encourage Dean Bailey to keep tanking for draft picks, through your newspaper column. Say it on the Footy Show too, more than once. "It's in the best interests of the Melbourne Footy Club to lose games this year"

Step 3 - Sit back and watch as Dean Bailey, despite doing his best to win those draft picks, gets a reputation as a coach who just can't coach a winning team

Step 4 - Request, and accept, the job as coach of the U16's at the AIS. The same job that Voss and Buckley held, before going on to be senior and senior-in-waiting coaches

Step 5 - State publicly that you're not interested in a senior role for the foreseeable future

Step 6 - Have another quiet chat to your best mates who run the Melbourne Football Club

Step 7 - Get your mates in the media to keep pumping up your tyres during 2010, the final year of Dean Bailey's contract

Step 8 - Pretend to look shocked and surprised on the Footy Show as news breaks that Dean Bailey's contract will not be renewed post 2010. The club thanks him for all his hard work, but the team just isn't going forward, etc...

Step 9 - Go through 'the process' with your best mates who run the Melbourne Football Club.

Step 10 - Win the senior coaching job at Melbourne, inheriting a great list of young talent courtesy of that sucker Dean Bailey who sacrificed his reputation for the club that ditched him the moment you decided you wanted to coach.

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Originally Posted by The Coon Dog

Gary, Gary, Gary, how many games has Ryan Hargrave played & you till can't get his name right? :rolleyes: It's not Hargreaves!!!!

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I can't believe how often this happens with reporters/commentators.
Maybe a sharp Hargrave right jab to the face will help them remember.

Garreys, do you have a suggestion for covering our injuries too?

Great timing for the article by the way. Straight after Tom Willimas injures himself and is out of action for the next 3 weeks minimum. Who, pray tell, does he expect to take the key forwards in Brian's absence down back now that Tommy is out of the team? I bet he thinks Cam Wight :rolleyes:

I actually hate it when journos, a few honorable exceptions notwithstanding, write and report on the Bulldogs when they clearly have no f'ing idea about our club. It's normally the high profile ones that do this.

No mention of how we will cope without Lake in defence.

He just says Hargrave and Morris should take car of Anthony and Cloke.

If my memory serves me correct didn't Lake take Anthony to the cleaners last time around?


I agree that we should be using Lake forward more often as he is our best contested marker, but we probably need him more in defense.

Wont happen without Tommy down there, especially against Geelong with Mooney and Hawkings. Perhaps it could work against the Pies with Morris to Cloke and Shaggy to Anthony but Presti would probably eat Lake alive down there.

To paraphrase Garry's Monday night segment... "BAD CALL GARRY" (Or if I was Caro - "Ridiculous calll, absurd call, absolutely the wrong call")...

Now is not the time to go fafffing around 'experimenting'...

On Friday night, the Dogs take on the Cats at the MCG. Structurally, the opportunity to push Lake forward presents itself. Dale Morris and Ryan Hargreaves are in good enough form to take on Cam Mooney and Tom Hawkins.

Throwing Lake into the forward mix would give Mark Thompson and his defenders something entirely different to think about. Lake out of the goal square, you would imagine, occupies the time and thoughts of Matthew Scarlett and potentially keeps him anchored to the last line of defence. The flow-on effect means that Brad Johnson, Scott Welsh or Mitch Hahn is free to play without the spectre of the competition's best defender hanging off them every minute. With Tom Harley and Darren Milburn looking vulnerable in the twilight of their careers and Tom Gillies still finding his feet, the medium-sized forwards who have served the Dogs so well this year would look even more dangerous.

This would mean that we would lose our only genuine tall defender and we know what happens when Shaggy plays tall.

At the other end of the ground Lake would struggle against Scarlett, but in Lyon's mind we would at least be able to exploit Geelong's other defenders with our mid-sized forwards.

If we use Welsh to drag Scarlett away from the ball like we did in last year's final, we could still exploit their defenders without losing our most important backman.

Copycat!

http://www.woof.net.au/forum/showthr...ght=brian+lake