MATTHEW Boyd didn't need to be told where he was headed last Saturday night.

As soon as the words "West Coast" were brought up at Whitten Oval last week, he knew it would be wherever premiership midfielder Daniel Kerr went. 

"He works pretty hard," an exhausted Boyd said after the Dogs' 60-point win over the Eagles at Telstra Dome.

"He always works hard and I love playing on him because he's such a good player. You learn a lot playing on blokes like that."

Not only was Boyd given the unenviable task of halting the kingpin of the Eagles' engine, but he was handed it at a time when tagging tactics applied to the All-Australian have been thrust into the spotlight.

Eagles coach John Worsfold has recently commented on the off-the-ball attention Kerr has been receiving this year, so you could have forgiven Boyd for approaching the gun ball-winner with a sense of trepidation. 

"I didn't really think about it, to be honest," he said.

"I know when we play West Coast that I'm going to play on him. That's just the way it is. The coaches don't even have to tell me, I just know I'm going to play on him.

"I just do my normal preparation and try and shut down his strengths, which is his work at the clearances. He got a few, but you can't stop them all."

At the end of the match, Boyd had kept Kerr to 22 touches and one goal while collecting 25 possessions himself.

Despite the overall result of the match, Boyd refused to call a victor from the hard-running bout.

"I think he was a bit disheartened towards the end. It's hard when you're down by a few goals and you're getting a fair bit of attention," he said.

"I don't think I got on top of him; I think we broke even. He's got the ability to win a match off his own boot, so if you can just stop him a little bit, it helps the team."

Boyd said the players were determined to atone for the massive 87-point defeat the Eagles handed them in round 17 last year.

"We mentioned it during the week that they embarrassed us here late last year, and we just couldn't accept that again," he said.

The 25-year-old said he wasn't surprised of how hard the Eagles have fallen this season after losing players such as Chris Judd and Ben Cousins. But the Bulldogs will still take plenty away from their 10-goal win, considering the calibre of the players the Western Australian side has left.

"(Coach Rodney Eade) said they still had 17 premiership players in their side from when they won (in 2006)," he said.

"Obviously they've lost a few good players and they're trying a new game style which takes a bit of time to get used to, with new personnel in there.

"They've got a lot of good young players, and everyone goes through this. We've been through it, and a lot of teams do. They'll bounce back because they're a good side all up."