Review Round 5, 2025 - Western Bulldogs vs. Brisbane Lions

[bungalow_bill]

Hipwood should have stood up for the lols

 

[BuntonRules]

I reckon Fages is trying to kill the idea that anyone stood up because the media will never forget when he's not going so hot.

What happens in the changeroom, stays in the changeroom.

 

[Gadzorks]

McDonald's needs to create a Morris Big Mac burger in QLD and cash in on the kid.

Straight shooter

The McMorris meal deal - Angus meal+nuggets+frappe. Only available on the Monday after a win.

Have to skip the soup though.

 

[braddsey]

The McMorris meal deal - Angus meal+nuggets+frappe. Only available on the Monday after a win.

Have to skip the soup though.

Can have it all - a gather-round special (only as long as it remains in Adelaide).

McMorris meal deal floater: Angus meal+nuggets+frappe served in a bowl of soup.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Rewatching the second half. Wonder if Levi’s ball use has a bit of Luke Power

Luke Power

Age

45

Ht

180cm

Wt

79kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

23.0

5star

K

13.4

5star

HB

9.6

5star

M

3.9

4star

T

3.9

5star

CL

1.9

4star

No current season stats available

D

16.6

4star

K

10.2

4star

HB

6.4

4star

M

1.4

2star

T

2.0

4star

influence

 

[Sunny Land]

Rewatching the second half. Wonder if Levi’s ball use has a bit of Luke Power influence. Levi will be good for us for a long time I am sure but if you watch his running, his defensive efforts are pretty ordinary. That should improve over time.

 

[Nunez]

Thought Levi's defensive running was better than most of our mids in the second quarter. Has improved every week in that regard.

Thought Will had a dramatic improvement in defensive effort this week too. Clearly something both are being pushed to develop. 5 tackles and 22 pressure acts from Will is a rock solid effort.

 

[Sunny Land]

Thought Levi's defensive running was better than most of our mids in the second quarter. Has improved every week in that regard.

Thought Will had a dramatic improvement in defensive effort this week too. Clearly something both are being pushed to develop. 5 tackles and 22 pressure acts from Will is a rock solid effort.

Yer no arguement with his performances so far. Very exciting in fact. Nobody is better at defensive running than Dunkley or Neale or even McCluggage. Both Ashcrofts are lucky to have such good mentors to bring that effort to standard.

 

[Sproj]

Levi has such a good feel for the game, was involved in so much good in the third quarter especially. Just needs to keep building fitness, he’s already really, really good.

Amazing that we are the premiers with so much young talent in and around the list still:

Morris, Washcroft, LAshcroft, McLachlan, Fletcher, Marshall, Lohmann, Brain, Wilmott, Gallop and I’m probably missing some.

If we can keep them together and fill the gaps of the older guys as they retire, we should still be very good for a very long time.

 

[twhowler]

I am not too sure what to make of that game! Great comeback. We can't keep doing it. A real rorschach test.

GOOD

Clugga - Is consistently at a really high level. Seems to be taking extra time with the ball - it's like he realises even if someone closes in on him he has a step so he waits for something to open up. I reckon he is using his left foot more as well

Watching Darcy vs Andrews - i thought Darcy won. Not by a lot. But his kicking meant they didn't capitalise. I think Darcy has such good reach you can't play Payne on him and have Harris go third man up, you need to be on him. Interesting to see how we approach the next game v the dogs though, whether we thought it worked or not. Darcy was close to ripping it away from us

BAD

Concentration levels - it wasn't so much the start although it was a bad 5 minutes. the worry is how much we seem to drop off. Lack of manning-up, space through the corridor, and in particular...

Defensive groundballs - we seem to really miss Starce in this regard. He is not only clean but reads it so well

Levi has such a good feel for the game, was involved in so much good in the third quarter especially. Just needs to keep building fitness, he’s already really, really good.

Amazing that we are the premiers with so much young talent in and around the list still:

Morris, Washcroft, LAshcroft, McLachlan, Fletcher, Marshall, Lohmann, Brain, Wilmott, Gallop and I’m probably missing some.

If we can keep them together and fill the gaps of the older guys as they retire, we should still be very good for a very long time.

Very limited pre season from Levi and only just turned 18. Considering that it’s an incredible start.

The weighting of the handballs from both of them is something you can’t teach. Will’s to Rayner in the last was perfect

 

[Gadzorks]

On Levi - the only sign that he is a beginner player is the slight but noticable hesitation when he is taking a kick from a mark that is allowing opposition to set up defensively.

Reckon it will be gone from his game by the end of the year.

 

[Grasshopper17]

I don't know what to say really. Thought tonight was going to be that wakeup call we needed. Turns out we didn't need one? I definitely think we are finding it hard to get ourselves motivated from the opening bounce. I don't think it's intentional, just half a dozen guys a little off and going through the motions, allowing themselves to work into the game. A few other things at play perhaps:

• Teams keen to give it a red hot crack against the premiers. Come out breathing fire.
• We don't panic (the coaching staff and players that is, not us fans )
• When we click and lift our energy it's very hard to stop, as well as demoralising for a side that has thrown everything at us.
• There is a bit of a Collingwood 2023 feel about our comebacks and sides just crack under the 'inevitability' of it all.

Yes I think at some stage we are gonna get a wake up call. Maybe we will try to launch another staggering comeback that falls short, or maybe even falls completely flat. That might even be the best thing for us, and a great reminder of the need to compete for as close as possible to four full quarters and/or not leave too much to too few.

Thursday night with a 5 day break against an in-form opponent may provide us with such a reminder.

Great atmosphere on Saturday night. Awesome vibes and I'd say everyone was thoroughly entertained.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Just like to state we were never actually 39 points down, Harris touched the Darcy kick. It was briefly 39 but was never technically 39.

It was 38 (67-29) for those brief moments before reverting to 33: the half time margin. 62-29

The Bulldogs then kicked 2 of the first 3 goals in the third quarter to lead 74-35, the 39 point margin everyone has been quoting.

 

[Grasshopper17]

They just got really tired and we upped our pressure rating 3x what it was in the first half.

We've got some issues like all teams . Banking 5 wins from where we were at in most of those games is an incredible effort.

Yes it really did look like the Bulldogs' schedule caught up with them in the 2nd half. At the ground our pressure obviously ramped up but our guys also had visibly more time and space.

A six day break off double travel to Perth, with both games in hot weather was always a chance to play a role. How much of the 11 goal turnaround it contributed to is open for debate of course. Very gracious of Beveridge not to use it an excuse I thought, or even as a reason.

It will be interesting to see how well we are able to handle our own 5 day break this week.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Maybe Eric had a jab at half time because he was running and jumping a whole lot better in the 3rd quarter but the key was winning the contest out of the middle particularly and around the ground despite the facts that our rucks weren't a factor.

I think my favourite thing about Eric's 2nd half was that it was kick-started by his great forward pressure to force their spilt kick-in. Coming just after Charlie's shocking set shot miss, you could understand him just going through the motions a bit on that play. But he sniffed the opportunity, went hard at it and ended up with the goal that turned things around. Peak footy karma.

 

[Elixuh]

Hipwood should have stood up for the lols

‘Sit down Eric, unless you plan to kick 5 in the second half and win the game for us’

 

[Grasshopper17]

One impressive part of the win.
Often teams come from a long way back get to the front only to stumble the last bit and lose the game.

We were down 39 points and somehow got to a 14-point lead.
Then the Dogs kicked 2 to get back to just 1 point with 10 minutes remaining.
We got a lead of 7 points with about 6 minutes left on the clock and the game still could have gone either way
Found a way to score 2 more goals from Eric and ended up winning by 21 points.

Running out that last 6 minutes of the game was impressive seeing our last game we conceded a lot of goals in red time.

Midway through the last quarter I mentioned to my mate I was with at the game about how I thought our 12-to-2-minutes-left strategy has needed a bit of work. It looked like it was coming true when the Dogs kicked those quick 2 goals to get back within a point!

But after that we absolutely nailed it on Saturday. We kept on playing to score, and we didn't just kick a sealer, we went one better and kicked an icing-on-the-cake goal.

Footy's changed a lot but kicking goals is still the best way to avoid having to "save the game" in the last 2 minutes. More of this lads!

 

[Grasshopper17]

Wonder who the brave person was that stood up - any guesses?

According to Zorks on SEN this morning, it was Harris Andrews, who was already standing because he's not a big fan of sitting during the half time breaks

 

[Nunez]

I heard it was Stewy Dew who stood up and told everyone to stop ****ing around rather loudly.

 

[Elixuh]

I heard it was Stewy Dew who stood up and told everyone to stop ****ing around rather loudly.

This is my alarm tone in the morning

 

[Nunez]

This is my alarm tone in the morning

I need a dub step remix of Stewys speech.

 

[Elixuh]

I need a dub step remix of Stewys speech.

Me getting out of bed every morning when the alarm goes off

 

[Gadzorks]

This is my alarm tone in the morning

Seems a bit blame game at the start. Then becomes more how I imagine fagan is - we are better than this..

Does fagan rant like that?

 

[bungalow_bill]

This season has a very 2002 vibe. I was a new fan back then and remember looking at who our upcoming victims opponents would be and looking forward to beating them like a rented mule.

 

[p4p1]

Watching Darcy vs Andrews - i thought Darcy won. Not by a lot. But his kicking meant they didn't capitalise. I think Darcy has such good reach you can't play Payne on him and have Harris go third man up, you need to be on him. Interesting to see how we approach the next game v the dogs though, whether we thought it worked or not. Darcy was close to ripping it away from us

I'm sure I read that we pulled Harris off the ground for a rest when Darcy went into the ruck. Another smart move IMO. Much better to be fresher against their most dangerous forward.