Despite being one of the League’s young teams the Western Bulldogs go into every game confident they can win according to vice-captain Marcus Bontempelli.

At an average of 58 games per player, the Dogs were the youngest side in the competition on the weekend when they went down to Fremantle by 51-points in Perth.

Speaking to RSN on Tuesday, Bontempelli said young teams will inevitably experience some ups and downs, as happened against the Dockers, Swans and Eagles in recent weeks.

“We obviously took a young group to Perth,” he said.  “A handful of blokes played less than ten games and even at the top end of things, we lost Dicko (Tory Dickson) early, another experienced player and it does spread the load again.

“We’ve just got to be patient in that regard to allow our younger players time to develop and grow, as we all need to. “

But as the Round 3 win over Essendon demonstrated, Bontempelli said the Club will always go into games confident they can win, despite their age profile.

“It’s just the way the game goes a little bit that sometimes you might be fighting out of your weight range but that’s no reason to go into the game with any less confident.  That will always be our mentality.”

The Dogs take on Carlton under lights at Etihad Stadium this Friday.