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It will be a buoyant Bulldogs playing group that will board the plane for Cairns on Thursday morning, as they look to build on their 8-5 winning-record against the Gold Coast Suns on Saturday afternoon.
The Bulldogs have won four of their past five matches, with Bulldogs forward-turned-wingman Jarrad Grant a common feature amongst the Club’s last successful month of football.
Playing the first four matches of the season, Grant went back to the VFL for a month, before returning to the AFL side for the Dogs’ round nine win over the Giants.
In his past five matches since his senior return, Grant has averaged 18-disposals per game in his new midfield role.
“I’ve spent most of my career as a forward, you obviously got a dour defender following you around for most of the day,” Grant told CrocMedia’s Sports Day earlier in the week.
“The wing gives you a lot of freedom, and the ability to cover the whole ground, I’ve enjoyed it.”
Reflecting on the Dogs’ three most recent victories, Grant says the side has relied on its defensive ethic, more so than attacking flair, to grind out the wins.
“We’ve obviously won our last three, scrapped away and got the wins there, and we’re looking forward to heading up to Cairns and play the Gold Coast,” Grant said.
The Carlton game in particular Grant noted, it was the Dogs’ midfielders’ work at the coalface that allowed them to set up the victory.
“We spoke at half time about Carlton getting on top…we needed to start winning the hunt around the ball and our guys, a credit to them, were able to change the game in the second half and get back on top.”
Koby Stevens collected 12 disposals for the term, while Jack Macrae (11 disposals), Liam Picken (9 disposals) and Caleb Daniel (9 disposals) also found plenty of the ball.
Looking ahead to Saturday afternoon’s twilight match, Grant said that the Suns would be a formidable opponent - despite their 17th placing on the ladder – and would be buoyed by their upset win over North Melbourne and the return of their captain Gary Ablett last weekend.
“It was a result that not many were expecting, but I’ve been coached by Rocket (Rodney Eade) and he’ll be firing to get his guys going,” Grant said.
Despite the increasing speculation around a potential finals berth, Grant said the players weren’t getting caught-up looking towards September just yet.
“It’s a cliché, but it’s just one week at a time at the moment. If we’re at the pointy end of the year in a good position then so be it, but we’ve just got to focus on playing Gold Coast this weekend.
“If we can continue to keep playing the way we play, we think that’s good enough to hold us in good form against any team.
“We think we can win every week from here on in, and I’d suggest that would be able to put us into finals contention, but we can’t look too far ahead ourselves or that could pull us back down.”
link including video of a great mark
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