It was an old-fashioned “arm-wrestle” according to Western Bulldogs defender Dale Morris.

Despite leading by 21 points with eight minutes remaining, the Eagles showed why they were Grand Finalists last year, finding a way to get themselves back into the contest in the final minutes and force the Dogs to earn their eight-point victory.

“It was definitely one of those games, it was an arm-wrestle,” Morris told westernbulldogs.com.au post-match.

“They came out early and we had to get the momentum back and the boys worked really hard especially in the midfield to get it back on our terms.

“We had to stick to our structures, our style and it came through in the end.”

The Eagles kicked three of the last four goals of the match, but the Dogs were able to hang on thanks to a rounded defensive effort.

“That’s the beauty of our game, this game was a tough one out there but with that arm wrestle and momentum, at one stage we moved the ball quite freely and the next minute they are.

“I thought we defended really well, we kept them to a low score, which was nice as a defensive unit, but it all comes down to team defence.”

That team defence aided Morris, Fletcher Roberts, Marcus Adams, Matthew Boyd and the rest of the defensive line to get on top of the Eagles’ power forwards.

The Dogs kept Jack Darling, Josh Kennedy and Scott Lycett to just three goals between them, but Morris humbly noted it was a team effort that created difficulty for the Eagles.

“They’ve got a lot of talent up forward, especially with their talls in Darling and Kennedy especially, and they’ve got LeCras and Hill and these guys that always pop up and kick some goals so we can’t take all the bragging rights for that.

“Our midfield did a super job and allowed us to play the way that we wanted to play.”