Rohan Connolly - The Age - 5 July

YOU need only a rudimentary grasp of mathematics to work out that the Western Bulldogs' premiership hopes might already be done and dusted two months before the finals begin.

The two-game gap between fourth-placed Fremantle and the Bulldogs, fifth, is not something easily retrieved with only eight games left. Not with Hawthorn, now level on points with the Dogs, coming like a freight train. And particularly not given the roads ahead of the teams involved.

There is justified anxiety about what the loss of Michael Barlow will do to the Dockers. But Freo has one of the friendlier draws of the top-four candidates, with four of its next five games against sides in the bottom eight, and the round-17 clash with the Dogs obviously make or break for the latter.

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