westernbulldogs.com.au extracts the key takeaways and talking points to emerge from Senior Coach Luke Beveridge's press conference on Sunday after the Bulldogs' loss to the West Coast Eagles at Optus Stadium.
The wrap
Beveridge broke down what went right and what went wrong in Sunday’s 54 point loss to West Coast in Perth.
“Obviously we got off to a promising start, but a sloppy tackle here and a fumble there, and we let the Eagles back in and we found it hard to recover.
“We had to move things around a bit to stop their momentum and then I was pleased after that. The players hung in there even though we lost a couple through injury, we had to throw them around in different positions.
“They hung in there, they fought it out, and probably minimised the damage in the end.”
Mitch Honeychurch
Honeychurch was met solidly but Eagles captain Shannon Hurn late in the third quarter and was stretchered from the ground, but Beveridge reported that the early signs were positive.
“He’ll have some scans and hopefully that all comes out ok.
“We’ve lost Lukas Webb now with a neck injury; he hurt his neck last week against Casey at VFL level and for there to be a concern with Mitch tonight, it just shows you how brutal the game can be at times.
“We all care deeply about our players and it’s disconcerting and there is possibility of a serious injury but the early indications are he should be ok.”
Luke Dahlhaus
Dahlhaus was helped from the ground after an Elliot Yeo tackle. Beveridge provide an update on the 25-year-old’s ankle.
“The medicos think he’s got one of those syndesmosis injuries so he might be in doubt for next week and we’ll give you a report on that as soon as we know. Luke couldn’t see the game out unfortunately.
“I remember Shaun Burgoyne played a finals series with a syndesmosis injury, so you can still play with them, it just depends on the seriousness of them and he’s limited his impact at the time, and so we thought it best to put him away.”
The run home
Beveridge reflected on what he’s hoping to get out of the remaining five weeks of the season.
“It’s hard on a day like today to find too many glaring positives because I keep saying we give ourselves a chance every week regardless of who we play. In patches you look like you’re up to it and in others you look like you aren’t.
“At some point the wheel will turn. We don’t want to play the long game and rise again, and regardless of the injury toll we feel like the 22 we put out each week are more than capable and we felt that again today but we fell well short.
“But we’re trying to build some foundations for the future and we want that to happen rapidly, we don’t want to finish every week the team on the other end of a nine or ten goal victory so we’ll endeavour to get some positives out of the last five games.”
Bonti set to return
Vice-captain Marcus Bontempelli looks like he’ll be ready to play when the Dogs travel to Ballarat next weekend to take on Port Adelaide.
“There might be a couple but the only one who will definitely come in is Marcus, I think Bonti will be ok. Other than that there’s a few boys who will be in full training but they’ve missed a lot of footy.
