Game Day - Western Bulldogs vs Essendon

[BulldogBelle]

This is the discussion thread for this Friday night's game at Etihad Stadium against Essendon.

My predictions are:

The Dogs by 25 points
BOG : Jason Akermanis
Shaun Higgins to kick the first goal.

[Go_Dogs]

Dogs by 6 goals, Cooney BOG, Murph to kick the first.

Should be cracker.

[AndrewP6]

Dogs by 17 (think this could be a tough one)
BOG - Cooooooooney
First goal to Wilbur

[Happy Days]

Dogs by 12,
Murph BOG,
Minson 1st Goal.

[LostDoggy]

Dogs by 45
BOG: Hargrave
Welsh first goal.

[Max469]

Dogs by 18 pts

Murphy - 1st goal

Griff - BOG

[The Coon Dog]

Dogs by 43 points.

Murphy BOG & 1st goal to Boyd.

[GVGjr]

Dogs by 16 points after relaxing in the last 10 minutes of the game

BOG Lake, first goal Johnson

[The Adelaide Connection]

Dogs by 24
BOG Griffen
First Goal Hill

[boydogs]

Dogs by 39 points
BOG Will Minson
First Goal Adam Cooney

[G-Mo77]

Dogs by 41 points
Murphy First Goal
Murphy BOG

[LostDoggy]

Dogs by 24 points
Hahn first goal
Griffen BOG

[The Pie Man]

Dogs by 28 pts
Welsh first goal
Aka close to BOG, Griffen to put me in my place and play well

[LostDoggy]

Dogs by 26pts
Aker first
Boyd BOG

[The Underdog]

Dogs by 21
Boyd BOG
Gilbee first goal

We should win this one although they are a much improved team and their strength of quick movement and run through the midfield is very dangerous, especially if we play tentative football.

[LostDoggy]

Go Hard Dogs!

Dogs by 25 points
First goal - Missy Higgins
BOG - (Magic) Griffin :D

[Ozza]

Only just found out that we have secured some medallion tickets - same spot as the geelong and Richmond games- so I'm hoping we play at the same level....if we do...

Dogs by 38 points.
Aker first goal and to be BOG.

I feel like every week is a must win game - but this one is...definitely....................a must win game!

[Scorlibo]

Dogs by 23 points.
BOG - Daniel Cross
First Goal - Will Minson

[LostDoggy]

Is tonight fully ticketed?
Could i just rock up and just by tickets or will it sell out?

[aker39]

Is tonight fully ticketed?
Could i just rock up and just by tickets or will it sell out?

Yes
Yes
No

[Mantis]

BOG - (Magic) Griffin :D

I thought you would be able to spell his name correctly seeing as though you have the correct spelling as your username.

Anyway...

Dogs by 37pts
Boyd BOG
Aker 1st goal

I hope we play the game on our terms and physically impose ourselves on a smaller opponent (as we used to cop against Adel & Syd)

[mighty_west]

Dogs by 19
Cooney B.O.G
Johnno first goal

[Mofra]

66 Point win to the Dogs, who will be fired up after last week
Boyd to again get under the radar and snag a BOG
Smily Brad to kick the first goal

[LostDoggy]

Dogs by 54pts
Aker first
Griff BOG

[bornadog]

Higgins first goal

BOG - Cross

Dogs by 33

[LostDoggy]

Dogs by 30+
BOG - Boyd
Aker First goal

[BulldogBelle]

Dogs by 36 points
First Goal = Higgins
BOG = Johnno

[comrade]

Just got home from a work function and listening to it on the wireless.

Sounds like Eagleton and Welsh are liabilities at the moment.

[LostDoggy]

I thought you would be able to spell his name correctly seeing as though you have the correct spelling as your username.

Anyway...

Dogs by 37pts
Boyd BOG
Aker 1st goal

I hope we play the game on our terms and physically impose ourselves on a smaller opponent (as we used to cop against Adel & Syd)

What can I say, I have a friend who spells her name with an i, and it is just instinctive for me to type it that way! Apologies to all who are offended :o

[BulldogBelle]

Just got home from a work function and listening to it on the wireless.

Sounds like Eagleton and Welsh are liabilities at the moment.

Agreed. Check the stats. Throw in Williams.

[comrade]

Agreed. Check the stats. Throw in Williams.

How many have Lloyd and Lucas kicked?

He's in the team to stop the opposition talls - not as a ball magnet.

[BulldogBelle]

Didn't compare him to Lloyd nor Lucas. Didn't suggest he was ball magnet. I just infered he had poor stats. Surely I can say that?

[comrade]

Didn't compare him to Lloyd nor Lucas. Didn't suggest he was ball magnet. I just infered he had poor stats. Surely I can say that?

Just because his stats aren't huge doesn't necessarily mean he's a liability, though.

It's all good, I think we're in a agreement. :)

[BulldogBelle]

Correct! Need some unanswered goals ASAP.

[Topdog]

Mitch Hahn with his 5th early in the 4th puts it back to 19 points.

[Topdog]

Game is unofficially over now. Up by 34 points in the middle of the last.

[comrade]

Class and experience won out in the end.

Bring on the Saints.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

It's good to see we consistently run out games well. It seems that as a game goes on and players from both sides start fatiguing and skills can tend to drop, our fitness levels are such that we are able to maintain our skills.

Providing we don't give teams large starts on us score wise early in a game, this could bode well for us in the finals.

[Bulldog4life]

Agreed. Check the stats. Throw in Williams.

Just got back from the game. Thought Tommy Williams did a good job.

[Dry Rot]

Only caught snippets, but the ABC radio coverage kept on referring to some lame pun "Lake Superior".

[LostDoggy]

I thought Tommy Williams was really good tonight. He fixed the errors he made in the Collingwood game. Good on ya Tommy! :)

[LostDoggy]

Yeah alot better Tom Williams!

I thought Hudson played well!
Anyone know what his stats were?
Took some good marks and important disposals when it mattered.

[LostDoggy]

We dominated the ruck. Minson and Hudson's tap work was superb.

[NoName]

I thought Tommy Williams was really good tonight. He fixed the errors he made in the Collingwood game. Good on ya Tommy! :)

I agree.

[LostDoggy]

Pros

Our defensive pressure was immense, we did not give Essendon any chance to run and play free flowing overlap football. We denied their space through half back, I thought our pressure and tacking wer really huge, we were feocious and I just love that about our footy lately.

Cross, Boyd, Picken did their jobs on their respective players and I think Watson only had one kcik. Griff's tackling and work in close was enormous but not sure where his kicking has gone, its the only thing letting him down.

Tom Williams walked off the ground.... And did a very good defensive job, looked much more settled than last week.

Welcome back Mitch, we've missed you!

Brian Lake is in career best form, his reading of the play and strong hands are so reassuring.

Harbrow continues to flourish in the pocket even though he still fumbles and turns it over a little. He is shutting opponents down (killed Davey) and creating great explosive run from full back, his effect has been very underrated.

Our whole backline was huge, Shag and Morro were also good down back, Morris took several great marks to relieve the pressure.

Our fitness and ability to run games out is quite impressive, I look forward to abig club pinching Davoren very soon.

Cooney and Gilbee are obviously hampered yet they did their jobs very well.

Will is really starting to present well around the ground. He has always been an OK ruckman, now he is actually presenting really well, his fitness is up and it shows as he is making contest after contest. Huddo contested well, also.

Higgins is amazing and has all the attributes to be a marque player and future captain.

Even though we were down by 4 goals at one stage i never felt in danger of losing the game, which is a new feeling.

Our clearance work in tight is the best i've ever seen, we work so well out of the middle.

Cons

Our delivery into half forward is atrocious, we make poor choices and our foot skills have been missing for the better part of the year. Make no mistake, it's our defensive game that is winning most of game, more than our skill level.

Or poor starts really annoy me, we love waiting a while beofre we wake up and play. We need a fair dinkum wake up call if we think this will be good enough against St Kilda. Next week we find out exactly how good we are.

Aker as been down a little in the last few games.

We are choosing poor options through half forward and many goals that sides have been kicking against us have been from our turnovers through half forward. We need to get better by foot!!!!


I feel that some of our results are masking the fact that we are actually butchering the ball for large portions of our games this year.

[Scorlibo]

Well summed up TAMA, re: butchering, those errant handballs are killing us. So many occasions where we panicked with the footy and handballed to no one, even Cooney, Aker did it.

[LostDoggy]

In the first quater, Johnson handballed straight to a bomber player.

[The Pie Man]

Pros

Cross, Boyd, Picken did their jobs on their respective players and I think Watson only had one kcik. Griff's tackling and work in close was enormous but not sure where his kicking has gone, its the only thing letting him down.

Tom Williams walked off the ground.... And did a very good defensive job, looked much more settled than last week.

Welcome back Mitch, we've missed you!

Brian Lake is in career best form, his reading of the play and strong hands are so reassuring.

Agreed on all points above - Griffen got plenty of it and tackled very well, but what is it with his disposal at the moment? You see Cross kick one on the run from 47 out hitting the fence on the full (I feel like grabbing Cross' head with a big grin on my face and yelling in the Arnie voice from the Chrysler Jeep ad 'see, YOU CAN DO IT!') and you would have thought Ryan's disposal is more penetrating than Daniel's - BUT .. I really rated Griffen's game all up, he's hard at it with the tackling and was very good.

Just over a month out from the finals and we've got a fit and in reasonable form Tom Williams - it's exciting, he's SO important to us.

If only we had that Mitch every week - and Lake is just about the best one grab mark I've ever seen. That next contract must keep building in value.....


Our fitness and ability to run games out is quite impressive, I look forward to abig club pinching Davoren very soon..

This also holds well for a tilt deep in September, we're never out of a game when we're able to run games out the way we do, and you can see the belief it gives them.


Will is really starting to present well around the ground. He has always been an OK ruckman, now he is actually presenting really well, his fitness is up and it shows as he is making contest after contest. Huddo contested well, also.

Higgins is amazing and has all the attributes to be a marque player and future captain.


If only Wilbur can get his mits working all the time - he can take a good contested grab, but he dropped some shockers last night - but yes, he ended up having a good game despite this. That free and 50 he got vs Fletcher was one of the worst bits of umpiring I've seen in quite some time.

I remember in pre-season there was a query (me included) about Higgins looking to use his left too much - in the season proper, I can't remember one passage of play where I've thought he's done something wrong - he's so clean...what a find

Still a bit to work on, but a good, consolidating win that I'm very pleased with.

[boydogs]

You see Cross kick one on the run from 47 out hitting the fence on the full (I feel like grabbing Cross' head with a big grin on my face and yelling in the Arnie voice from the Chrysler Jeep ad 'see, YOU CAN DO IT!')

LOL I think Johnno did just that! :D

[LostDoggy]

Great to see Tommygun hit his straps and gain some confidence....... he will be needed next week against the tall timber of the Saints! Also great to see how we are becoming proficient at running games out hard, and not fading. The team's fitness is obviously up this year! How about Johnno running around like a pup off the lead :D He really seemed to enjoy himself working further up the ground! Happy birthday to Johnno today, and Tommygun yesterday - beating the bombers is a great present to give us!!

[Throughandthrough]

This game reminded me so much of the game early in the year when we played the crows; similar scoring trends with scrappy first half followed by a great third quarter.


A win is a win, was the first time i have seen the dogs win @ Docklands i think.


Early in the second quarter i commented that we would win as our defence was playing so bloody well. Then the dons kicked 3 goals in 5 minutes but anyhows...