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What's behind the decline of the Western Bulldogs running game
The Western Bulldogs have started 0-2, with their running already under the microscope. DANIEL CHERNY explores what?s gone wrong so far.
Josh Dunkley generally handles the media with the same cleanliness he shows at stoppages. But pre-season remarks he made about his former club the Western Bulldogs? running ? or supposed lack thereof ? created a mini storm.
It's been a great pre-season so far. The boys have come back really fit and are running really well,? Dunkley said.
Which has been a bit of a change-up for me too because we didn't really run a lot at the Dogs as much as we do here.
Given the intrigue surrounding the reasons for Dunkley's move to the Brisbane Lions at the end of last season, the comments were interpreted as a dig at the club where he was a premiership player in 2016 and won the best and fairest in 2022.
Having copped a pasting from some Bulldogs supporters on social media, Dunkley took to Twitter to clarify the remarks.
This has been taken way out of context, I genuinely have no problems at all with the club, Dunkley wrote.
However if that?s how you want to try and rev up round three, then go ahead. All I'm looking forward to, is playing against my old teammates.
Well round three is upon us, and Dunkley is set to confront his former side at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night. After a fade out against Port Adelaide in round one, the Lions bounced back well to beat Melbourne last Friday night.
There has been no such relief for the Dogs though, thrashed in consecutive weeks to start the season, first by the Demons and then more alarmingly by an undermanned St Kilda.
Theories have abounded as to what has gone wrong across the first two rounds. At a doorstop on Monday morning, captain Marcus Bontempelli said the Dogs needed a ?really simple focus with the contest with the basic skills and fundamentals?.
It's something of a motherhood statement. And the Dogs did lose the contested possession count against the Saints by 11, albeit having won that category against Melbourne by 15.
But Dunkley's running comments, even if he talked them back, perhaps pointed to a broader truth about why the Dogs are battling on the back of four-straight finals appearances.
Running is an issue for the Bulldogs. The prevailing view at the club does not appear to be that they aren't doing enough of it. But in relative terms, they aren't the running side they once were.
Dunkley might not have initially identified the reason for this. But he is part of the reason. The midfielder is known as an excellent contested ball winner, but he's also an elite endurance runner by AFL standards, albeit with moderate speed.
Lachie Hunter, whose departure from the Dogs was not purely down to on-field considerations, is an outstanding runner both in terms of pace and tank.
Pat Lipinski, traded to Collingwood 12 months before Dunkley and Hunter left after being starved of opportunities in a stacked midfield, is not overly quick but has good endurance.
Exacerbating the issue is the fact the Bulldogs have, as has been well-documented, with a very tall side early in the season. Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Sam Darcy are both still raw, and it?s hard to imagine any club would not have taken such talented key position players given the chance early in the draft.
But as with most young key position players, they are both prone to dramatic form fluctuations. And when it comes to covering ground, both are still very much developing.
That the Dogs have gone tall early in the draft three years running (Jedd Busslinger was taken at pick No.13 last season) has also denied the club access to some of the top-tier running talent available early in the draft. Of course, it is always a trade-off.
The Dogs cause also wasn't helped on Saturday night by the identity of their opposition, given St Kilda despite some weaknesses does have a lot of quality running players, something Ross Lyon has mentioned publicly several times since becoming coach.
Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge spoke frankly about the situation following the loss to the Saints.
There's no doubt that when we prepare our ground cover as far as the intensity of it and the speed of it, we haven't been up to the level that the first two teams had, Beveridge said.
Now that's a combination of things. It's definitely not because we haven't worked hard enough. It's a difficult one to analyse but we've just got to face up to it.
The next step will be interesting. Do the Dogs cop the pain that comes with the ups and downs of young talls in a side that has lost some of its best runners Or does the structure need to change? Speedy forward Arthur Jones will make his debut against the Lions. It's a start.
The Western Bulldogs have started 0-2, with their running already under the microscope. DANIEL CHERNY explores what?s gone wrong so far.
Josh Dunkley generally handles the media with the same cleanliness he shows at stoppages. But pre-season remarks he made about his former club the Western Bulldogs? running ? or supposed lack thereof ? created a mini storm.
It's been a great pre-season so far. The boys have come back really fit and are running really well,? Dunkley said.
Which has been a bit of a change-up for me too because we didn't really run a lot at the Dogs as much as we do here.
Given the intrigue surrounding the reasons for Dunkley's move to the Brisbane Lions at the end of last season, the comments were interpreted as a dig at the club where he was a premiership player in 2016 and won the best and fairest in 2022.
Having copped a pasting from some Bulldogs supporters on social media, Dunkley took to Twitter to clarify the remarks.
This has been taken way out of context, I genuinely have no problems at all with the club, Dunkley wrote.
However if that?s how you want to try and rev up round three, then go ahead. All I'm looking forward to, is playing against my old teammates.
Well round three is upon us, and Dunkley is set to confront his former side at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night. After a fade out against Port Adelaide in round one, the Lions bounced back well to beat Melbourne last Friday night.
There has been no such relief for the Dogs though, thrashed in consecutive weeks to start the season, first by the Demons and then more alarmingly by an undermanned St Kilda.
Theories have abounded as to what has gone wrong across the first two rounds. At a doorstop on Monday morning, captain Marcus Bontempelli said the Dogs needed a ?really simple focus with the contest with the basic skills and fundamentals?.
It's something of a motherhood statement. And the Dogs did lose the contested possession count against the Saints by 11, albeit having won that category against Melbourne by 15.
But Dunkley's running comments, even if he talked them back, perhaps pointed to a broader truth about why the Dogs are battling on the back of four-straight finals appearances.
Running is an issue for the Bulldogs. The prevailing view at the club does not appear to be that they aren't doing enough of it. But in relative terms, they aren't the running side they once were.
Dunkley might not have initially identified the reason for this. But he is part of the reason. The midfielder is known as an excellent contested ball winner, but he's also an elite endurance runner by AFL standards, albeit with moderate speed.
Lachie Hunter, whose departure from the Dogs was not purely down to on-field considerations, is an outstanding runner both in terms of pace and tank.
Pat Lipinski, traded to Collingwood 12 months before Dunkley and Hunter left after being starved of opportunities in a stacked midfield, is not overly quick but has good endurance.
Exacerbating the issue is the fact the Bulldogs have, as has been well-documented, with a very tall side early in the season. Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Sam Darcy are both still raw, and it?s hard to imagine any club would not have taken such talented key position players given the chance early in the draft.
But as with most young key position players, they are both prone to dramatic form fluctuations. And when it comes to covering ground, both are still very much developing.
That the Dogs have gone tall early in the draft three years running (Jedd Busslinger was taken at pick No.13 last season) has also denied the club access to some of the top-tier running talent available early in the draft. Of course, it is always a trade-off.
The Dogs cause also wasn't helped on Saturday night by the identity of their opposition, given St Kilda despite some weaknesses does have a lot of quality running players, something Ross Lyon has mentioned publicly several times since becoming coach.
Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge spoke frankly about the situation following the loss to the Saints.
There's no doubt that when we prepare our ground cover as far as the intensity of it and the speed of it, we haven't been up to the level that the first two teams had, Beveridge said.
Now that's a combination of things. It's definitely not because we haven't worked hard enough. It's a difficult one to analyse but we've just got to face up to it.
The next step will be interesting. Do the Dogs cop the pain that comes with the ups and downs of young talls in a side that has lost some of its best runners Or does the structure need to change? Speedy forward Arthur Jones will make his debut against the Lions. It's a start.
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