Round 1 - Western Bulldogs V North Melbourne - Sat 15/3/25 Marvel Stadium 7:35PM AEDT

[EasternWest]

Gee the mood feels like it is a bit dull for a win? A lot of positives today and to hold on down O'Donnel and Cleary. Not many teams win with 5 starters out and a key back out in game. Looked good to me.....

You're new here mate, give it time

[josie]

Gee the mood feels like it is a bit dull for a win? A lot of positives today and to hold on down O'Donnel and Cleary. Not many teams win with 5 starters out and a key back out in game. Looked good to me.....

Agree Aidan- I said to my partner after game I’d have put up with a loss if it was close. Players take a while to build chemistry & considering our outs, lots of changes, injuries in game, poor games from some of our senior players and two horrendous ump decisions (thought they were on whole not too bad but that Lobb touch of Larkey mark and the clear as day HTB in last qtr close to our F50 were truly bad), it was an ok win.

Happy for Vanders. Glad Bevo put Frejiah and West in ball. Thought that helped us over the line.

Hope Sanders takes confidence from his second half & his 2 goals. McNeil good today too.

[Bornadog]

It was very hot inside Marvel tonight, a better crowd than I thought there would be.

We seem to just keep ahead of North every time they came at us.

Good to see Sanders kick his first goals for the club. One of our youngest teams for some time with 9 players with less than 50 games and some of the kids now have a taste.

[Eastdog]

Just got home now. A good gutsy win tonight considering our personnel issues.

Richards, Dale and Libba very good tonight. Great game from Vandermeer and got on the scoreboard. Thought Sanders grew into the game in the 2nd half and got some goals. That will give him some confidence.

Kennedy was a good pick up and played very good game

Larkey kicked 5 goals for North and they couldn't get it done so I'm pretty happy with that one.

I hope Luke Cleary will be ok.

Marvel should have opened the roof tonight. It was very hot inside.

[josie]

It was very hot inside Marvel tonight, a better crowd than I thought there would be.

We seem to just keep ahead of North every time they came at us.

Good to see Sanders kick his first goals for the club. One of our youngest teams for some time with 9 players with less than 50 games and some of the kids now have a taste.

What was crowd BAD? I was at game (Felt like I was in tropics) but missed it on score board.

[G-Mo77]

34k I think.

[Bornadog]

yes it was 34k

[Pleather Sole]

Vandermeer was totally switched on. I kinda closed my eyes at times expecting him to fluff his chances but he followed through with confidence and delivered. The set shot from the angle was crisp and true. He seems to have clicked. I'll personally send him the peroxide if that is the difference.

What the hell is going on at Fox and Kayo? Barely any game analysis of the actual game in the breaks. They're there at the game aren't they? Then we got one interview with Ed on ground and the song. After that it switched to god knows what. An absolute hodge podge of other games, sponsor shite and Grand Prix nonsense, I know some people like it but I don't watch footy to get Grand Prix gateway drug content, or any other sport actually.

There wasn't any rooms footage or Coach Pressers or did I miss them? Kayo timed out a few times and the tv wheel of death loading began despite having very fast internet and an up to date system.
Such a downer when you watch a game and it suddenly throws to unrelated games and there is no follow up from the game you're actually invested in. Poor broadcasting.
I was almost wishing for Roamin' Brian, almost.

[kruder]

I was out for dinner missed the majority but woofers was it just me or we trying to move the ball quicker than we have in the past? It looked a lot different from what I saw and maybe too quick at times?

[TysonC]

Disgusting form from our supporters in this forum, the negativity around a win in round 1 is insane. Down 5 best 22 players, including 2 reigning All Australian midfielders, leading goal kicker and best key defender and the response is as if we are a second rate team that would be lucky to finish above bottom 2? We beat a side that has gone ALL IN this season and absolutely needed to win that game, North traded their first round pick, brought in experience and had everything riding on this game, to win undermanned is an absolute feat and a half and it is disappointing to see so many negative responses when the same people likely called out season over after the loss against Freo in 2016. Poor

[NAUGHTY100]

well said my friend .

[Stevo]

Disgusting form from our supporters in this forum, the negativity around a win in round 1 is insane. Down 5 best 22 players, including 2 reigning All Australian midfielders, leading goal kicker and best key defender and the response is as if we are a second rate team that would be lucky to finish above bottom 2? We beat a side that has gone ALL IN this season and absolutely needed to win that game, North traded their first round pick, brought in experience and had everything riding on this game, to win undermanned is an absolute feat and a half and it is disappointing to see so many negative responses when the same people likely called out season over after the loss against Freo in 2016. Poor

I echo this., JanLorMill and chef must have near a combined 40 years plus of being on football forums and can barely bring themselves to acknowledge a spirited effort.
I get there can be some negativity and that's more than OK but some go out of their way. Misery does love company.

[SonofScray]

Pretty enjoyable game of footy.

Need to have a crack at Jackson Archer before anything else. Classic weak as piss Norf rat, an absolute moron like his dad, who when he wasn’t pulling fake tough guy stuff like that, he’d be trying to kill cyclists and bash kids at local footy. There was no reasonable expectation that he’d get to that contest and be in a position to win the ball, but he went in and clattered away regardless, just to ensure he damaged his opponent. That was as close to a broken neck at the footy I think I’ve seen. Really ordinary effort from him, but expect nothing less from the surname.

Going to watch the replay now but I was happy with the efforts to move the footy forward, the general physicality in the game with the exception of a few flat patches across the 2nd and 3rd. Davidson and Gallagher did so,e great gut running in those conditions.

Still had a few moments where it felt like we’d grind to a halt, thankfully they kicked poorly and we nailed some chances when it was drying up. Liked that. Some good cohesion across phases of play. Frejiah’s late goal a sign of that.

[Bornadog]

Disgusting form from our supporters in this forum, the negativity around a win in round 1 is insane. Down 5 best 22 players, including 2 reigning All Australian midfielders, leading goal kicker and best key defender and the response is as if we are a second rate team that would be lucky to finish above bottom 2? We beat a side that has gone ALL IN this season and absolutely needed to win that game, North traded their first round pick, brought in experience and had everything riding on this game, to win undermanned is an absolute feat and a half and it is disappointing to see so many negative responses when the same people likely called out season over after the loss against Freo in 2016. Poor

Just to let you know, the game day thread people say lots of things, but the rule of the forum is : What goes on in the game day thread, stays in the game day thread.

You will notice I don't post much in this thread, just at the end of the game, and only if we win

[jazzadogs]

Disgusting form from our supporters in this forum, the negativity around a win in round 1 is insane. Down 5 best 22 players, including 2 reigning All Australian midfielders, leading goal kicker and best key defender and the response is as if we are a second rate team that would be lucky to finish above bottom 2? We beat a side that has gone ALL IN this season and absolutely needed to win that game, North traded their first round pick, brought in experience and had everything riding on this game, to win undermanned is an absolute feat and a half and it is disappointing to see so many negative responses when the same people likely called out season over after the loss against Freo in 2016. Poor

There's a bit of an unwritten rule that the GameDay thread is quite toxic and negative, and the rational takes tend to come next day. It can be hard to read if you're a glass half full person though!

I'm with you, great win under duress. Norf had their opportunities to take the game from us in the first half but are simply not good enough. Their ball movement from d50 was horrid (what was their plan at kick outs? Have Caleb run in circles then eventually bomb long to nothing?). The clearance and contested ball numbers were certainly a concern, though we evened that out in the final quarter with the game on the line.

I really thought they would run over us late, watching at the ground. It was a big tick for our fitness that we looked to be running better than them for the last 10 minutes or so.

There's probably 10-12 sides that beat us on that performance, but we weren't playing them. We were playing Norf. We bank the 4 points and lessons learned, and we move to a massive game at the G next week.

Final note, the Cleary collision was as bad as I've seen live in terms of potential to cause a spinal injury. Abhorrently reckless from Archer, and I hope he gets weeks (to go with the pats on the back from dad for all that boner spirit). I hope Cleary is okay.

[Bornadog]

I was out for dinner missed the majority but woofers was it just me or we trying to move the ball quicker than we have in the past? It looked a lot different from what I saw and maybe too quick at times?

We did move the ball very quickly end to end on a number of occasions. Still have a lot of work to do, but I like it.

[JanLorMill]

I echo this., JanLorMill and chef must have near a combined 40 years plus of being on football forums and can barely bring themselves to acknowledge a spirited effort.
I get there can be some negativity and that's more than OK but some go out of their way. Misery does love company.

What rubbish are you talking about? Where was I negative after the win?

[The bulldog tragician]

Let’s not forget the gruelling conditions and the quality we were missing… and the flow on effects of players in different roles and positions, which seemed to effect our chemistry and instinct for where teammates would be and how we wanted to play.

I was worried about this game and encouraged that we always seemed to find something when North rattled the cage. In the first 10 minutes of the last quarter there were some very gritty efforts to stem the flow out of the centre that had been a concern. I never doubted the effort, we were a bit ragged and some North goals came from dumb errors.

i was really glad to see Ryley Sanders play well. It is far too early to write this kid off. He showed some smarts. Now that he’s broken his goal drought hopefully he will be more confident. Matt Kennedy is such a good acquisition, I think he’s a real gem.

There’s a lot to work on but I reckon there was also plenty to like. Roll on 2025.