AFL Game Day Round 6, 2018 - Western Bulldogs V Carlton at Etihad Stadium

[bornadog]

I've been super impressed with Naughton and thought he was strong again tonight. He doesn't look like he needs a rest but I remember talking to Lukas Webb in his first season and he was rested for a week after a good debut few games. At the time he thought he was cheated but then admitted they coaching team got it right. Naughton may not look likes he needs it but we don't want to run him into the ground.

I tell you who may need a rest and that is English. Lost most tap outs, but once again played well around the ground. He looked tired at times.

[1eyedog]

I've been super impressed with Naughton and thought he was strong again tonight. He doesn't look like he needs a rest but I remember talking to Lukas Webb in his first season and he was rested for a week after a good debut few games. At the time he thought he was cheated but then admitted they coaching team got it right. Naughton may not look likes he needs it but we don't want to run him into the ground.

Young's a handy replacement looking forward to him getting a run soon.

[SonofScray]

Take the win and resign this one to the annals of history. An awful display punctuated by occasional moments of competence against a mostly inept opponent.

When the game was on our terms and opened up a bit it was clear we would have their measure. I hated that they were able to stifle and suffocate us for long stretches. Better teams have managed it, though they also punished the turnovers. Carlton let us off the hook a bit there. We break down forward of the ball and just grind to a halt. It's infuriating and takes far too long to rectify.

[jeemak]

Carlton has an MO of making the game borderline unwatchable. We didn’t finish our work and it was tough going, but it was a win that should have had a narrative of us cruising to an eight goal snooze fest.

As it was, we have had to make do with a three goal snooze fest.

[Ozza]

Carlton has an MO of making the game borderline unwatchable. We didn’t finish our work and it was tough going, but it was a win that should have had a narrative of us cruising to an eight goal snooze fest.

As it was, we have had to make do with a three goal snooze fest.

Tend to agree. At half time - 50 to 27. Would have been nice to double that up and win by 8 goals. A combo of Carlton making it ugly, and us not having the class and experience in the line up currently, saw us fall into a game of errors and lose our control.

In Cripps, Curnow, Fisher and Dow - they’ve got some young talent there. Will be interesting to see if Bolton can enable it to flourish with the way they go about it.

[Eastdog]

Wasn't pretty the game itself but great to be back on the winners list again. Both wins this year by 21 points. Great to sing the song again after the match and not have to leave pretty straight away when the siren sounds as I do when we lose.

We still have huge issues with our goal kicking as I felt we really could have shut the door on this one but we kept it ajar for a bit more longer towards the end. Skill errors are frustrating (e.g.: Suckling gifting the Blues that soccer goal). Gowers is a good mark and kicked some goals - I think he has been ok although when he got done holding the ball that wasn't his finest moment.

Loved Naughton in defence again - did pretty good and particularly those 2 marks down there he took. Bont played good tonight and Boyd was lively again - both just need to kick at goal a bit better. Lipinski a huge positive up forward with 3 goals - going to be a quality forward.

Onto next week now in Ballarat vs Gold Coast then back at Etihad vs Brisbane Lions. Both winnable games but must be weary.

Go Bulldogs!!

[jeemak]

Tend to agree. At half time - 50 to 27. Would have been nice to double that up and win by 8 goals. A combo of Carlton making it ugly, and us not having the class and experience in the line up currently, saw us fall into a game of errors and lose our control.

In Cripps, Curnow, Fisher and Dow - they’ve got some young talent there. Will be interesting to see if Bolton can enable it to flourish with the way they go about it.

More interesting will be Carlton’s intestinal fortitude to stick with Bolton at all. He’s two more losses between surviving and Carlton reverting to type and sacking him and installing Paul Roos.

[merantau]

Take the win and resign this one to the annals of history. An awful display punctuated by occasional moments of competence against a mostly inept opponent.

When the game was on our terms and opened up a bit it was clear we would have their measure. I hated that they were able to stifle and suffocate us for long stretches. Better teams have managed it, though they also punished the turnovers. Carlton let us off the hook a bit there. We break down forward of the ball and just grind to a halt. It's infuriating and takes far too long to rectify.

"Breaking down forward of the ball."
There were a couple of times last night I noticed that we had the ball on the burst and kicking it into the forward 50. If forwards were reading the play they had time to lead into space. But the kick went to a one on one contest and was cleared. It was difficult to tell whether forwards were too slow to react or whether the wrong option was chosen.
I do remember one horrible loopy kick by Crozier that landed on our guy's head and was cleared with ease.

[G-Mo77]

Yeah righto pal. Had a tough time watching the bulldogs in the last few years?

Sure I'll wear that. 2017 and so far 2018 has hardly been fun either and I just can't sit back and watch us piss it all away and say "Oh well we won it in 2016". From 1 to what I predict, bottom 5 in 2 seasons that is awful. Why are we rebuilding after being premiers just over a year ago? Why have we got such an unbalanced list? Anyway best to discuss that in another topic. A wins a win I guess.

[Topdog]

Lippy looks the goods and can actually kick straight.

Whilst a bit disappointing we were 2 inches away from winning that by 7 goals, so many posters

[LostDoggy]

Wasn't pretty the game itself but great to be back on the winners list again. Both wins this year by 21 points. Great to sing the song again after the match and not have to leave pretty straight away when the siren sounds as I do when we lose.

We still have huge issues with our goal kicking as I felt we really could have shut the door on this one but we kept it ajar for a bit more longer towards the end. Skill errors are frustrating (e.g.: Suckling gifting the Blues that soccer goal). Gowers is a good mark and kicked some goals - I think he has been ok although when he got done holding the ball that wasn't his finest moment.

Loved Naughton in defence again - did pretty good and particularly those 2 marks down there he took. Bont played good tonight and Boyd was lively again - both just need to kick at goal a bit better. Lipinski a huge positive up forward with 3 goals - going to be a quality forward.

Onto next week now in Ballarat vs Gold Coast then back at Etihad vs Brisbane Lions. Both winnable games but must be weary.

Go Bulldogs!!

Interesting theory there Easty. What are the advantages to us being weary?

[Mofra]

Lippy looks the goods and can actually kick straight.

Away from the F50 he seemed a little panicked / rushed with the ball early, which you expect from a kid with only a couple of games to his name.
With a few more games experience that will disappear - given he gets to the right spots and can actually kick straight he gives us something we need.

[Hotdog60]

More interesting will be Carlton’s intestinal fortitude to stick with Bolton at all. He’s two more losses between surviving and Carlton reverting to type and sacking him and installing Paul Roos.

You might not be far off the mark with Roos dropping the comment he was a Carlton supporter last night.

[bornadog]

Away from the F50 he seemed a little panicked / rushed with the ball early, which you expect from a kid with only a couple of games to his name.
With a few more games experience that will disappear - given he gets to the right spots and can actually kick straight he gives us something we need.

kicked a ripper goal in the third on the run

[SonofScray]

"Breaking down forward of the ball."
There were a couple of times last night I noticed that we had the ball on the burst and kicking it into the forward 50. If forwards were reading the play they had time to lead into space. But the kick went to a one on one contest and was cleared. It was difficult to tell whether forwards were too slow to react or whether the wrong option was chosen.
I do remember one horrible loopy kick by Crozier that landed on our guy's head and was cleared with ease.

I haven't been able to see exactly what the opposition are doing to cause it, or if I think relates to our rotations but here are the scenarios I think contribute. The cause isn't super clear, but the impact is incredibly marked.

1. Forwards pressing deeper into the defensive oress. Perhaps the opposition are matching our numbers right at the coal face across more sections of the ground. The trend is to keep throwing bodies forward to grind out the goals and lock the ball in, but I suspect that teams are expanding the area with which they choose to do that and our forwards aren't organised enough to deal with it so they all get up into the neutral zone.

2. Kicking skills. They are so poor that it has to dent confidence for players who are waning to lead up and present, knowing they'll be made to look silly and double down on their effort when it sails over their head, 20m wide to opponents advantage, or never end up coming because the kick turned into a rushed handpass. There might be times when certain players rotate through and just can't accomodate the knowledge that the ball won't come in on their terms and default to kick chasing.

If I am in the box I would try a few things. Boyd/Gowers out of the square in the 2 man forward line. Put the extra numbers exclusively into the press and start to look at our F50 entries in terms to two types of play borrowed from ice hockey. 1) Dump and chase. Win the ball, get it between halfway and HFF and kick as long and direct to the goal mouth or pocket as possible to the contest. First three forwards near the arc work hard to get to the fall of the ball, everyone else pull up and put the defensive component around to lock it. 2) Tic, TAC, Toe. Similar to a Malthouse game plan to manage our skill deficiencies, hold possession, go wide via the cape and when they push numbers back try swing it around to get a shot from 50-45 from the guys in the squad you can trust to go the journey.

In isolation both are probably low percentage plays and would do little to address our scoreboard inefficiencies, the dump and chase is great in that so long as the pressure is up, it forces the opposition defence to work harder without the ball and be careful about joining their efforts pushing forward if we turn it over. Once they address it with an extra man back, you switch up the entries because we should have an extra man as an outlet... somewhere.

More simply, tonight could have been a bigger victory if we were prepared to run and carry the ball a little bit longer and ensured the long kick inside 50 went to the square and not just inside the arc.