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DEFENCE wins premierships, the wise heads of football always say.
But it is the polish and poise of forwards that wins you games week in, week out.
Without a mix of both, you have little hope of challenging - and that is the painful reality confronting Western Bulldogs coach Brendan McCartney.
McCartney and his Dogs are doing so much right, holding teams to manageable scores and winning enough hard ball through the midfield to create forward thrusts, but the good news stops at the 50m paint.
The Bulldogs have this season converted only 20.7 per cent of forward-50 entries to goals, ranked last in the competition.
The conversion rate is the lowest recorded by Champion Data since it started keeping the statistic in 1999.
The Dogs were No.1 in the stat as recently as 2009, converting 29.3 per cent of all entries to goals. In 2010 and last year, they were ranked fourth.
But McCartney, who put a Dogs team on the park against Collingwood bristling with hunger and intent on Friday night, is working with a forward line learning on the job.
Footy moves so quickly, it is easy to forget the comings and goings at clubs, but loss of natural goalkickers at Whitten Oval has been extraordinary.
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McCartney and his Dogs are doing so much right, holding teams to manageable scores and winning enough hard ball through the midfield to create forward thrusts, but the good news stops at the 50m paint.
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In 2009, the Dogs' top 10 goalkickers were, in order: Jason Akermanis, Mitch Hahn, Brad Johnson, Josh Hill, Shaun Higgins, Lindsay Gilbee, Daniel Giansiracusa, Scott Welsh, Nathan Eagleton and Callan Ward.
Only two - Higgins and Giansiracusa - played against the Pies.
Barry Hall arrived the following year, and he is gone too.
Liam Jones is a powerful athlete with the invaluable asset of making contested marking look easy but, without the support of Hall, he is struggling to bring much else to the table.
He will be a player, but is probably still two years from being able to have an impact to the extent of kicking five goals in a game.
Ayce Cordy and Jordan Roughead have also been trialled as targets. Again, they need time.
Jarrad Grant was recruited as a potential key target, but is more of a flanker and needs to start delivering on his ample talents consistently.
The Dogs desperately need a mature-age "bridging" player to help Jones and Co. out over the next two to three years.
Ed Barlow was hardly a superstar power forward, but he had a big tank and could mark overhead. He seemed stiff to be given the chop in the off-season.
Club legend Doug Hawkins wanted Brendan Fevola to be that bridging player, but he was deemed too risky.
The Dogs will have two first-round picks in this year's super draft, but no doubt their focus will be on claiming a fringe forward from another club who could make a difference.
MORE STATS CONFIDENTIAL
If you don't mind
IT was a poor bouncing display in Friday night's Collingwood-Bulldogs game at Etihad.
A series of false starts, and second bounces, re-ignited debate about the worth of the centre bounce - an incredibly difficult skill.
Do we just bounce it to start quarters? Maybe.
The downside is, it would give leaping machine Nic Naitanui a gold pass to dominate if the ball is thrown up predictably each time.
Pause/rewind
SYDNEY had the ball inside its forward half for 60 per cent of the game against Adelaide, winning the inside 50 count 67-45. It was the highest inside 50 count by a losing team since Geelong had 67 in Round 1, 2003, and lost to the Bulldogs.
THIS season, 75 per cent of teams winning the contested possession count in a game have collected the four points.
Geelong continues to defy logic. It has won four of six despite not winning the contested battle once.
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