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.

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