The Bulldogs will head to Ballarat this week to take on Port Adelaide for the first of this year’s home games at Mars Stadium. The Dogs have made it a fortress of sorts in recent years, winning eight of 10 games since 2021. It could easily have been 10 from 10, with both losses by margins of less than a goal.
Saturday’s match will be the 14th overall that the Western Bulldogs have played at Mars stadium for premiership points, with the first of those coming against this week’s opponent, Port Adelaide in Round 22, 2017. The Dogs took a seven-point lead into the final quarter of that cold August afternoon, but the Power surged away in the final quarter to win by 17.
Port were also the winners at Mars in July the following year, and the two sides have not met in Ballarat since. In the years since that match the Dogs and Port Adelaide have faced off nine times, twice at Marvel Stadium and the other seven all at Adelaide Oval.
During that period Adelaide Oval has been the stage for some great wins over Port by the Doggies. These included an impressive performance on a wet winter’s night in 2019 when the Bulldogs won by 25 points, and a midfield masterclass from Marcus Bontempelli and Jack Macrae in Round 9, 2021, the pair leading the Dogs to a 19-point win.
But the Western Bulldogs’ standout performance against Port Adelaide during this period came later in that same year in the 2021 Second Preliminary Final. The Dogs came into that match having beaten Essendon in Tasmania and the Lions in Brisbane in their first two finals, and Port went into the match as strong favourites. However, the Bulldogs took little time to make a mockery of the odds – not to mention the burden of playing in three different states in three weeks – with a withering seven-goal-to-one burst in the opening quarter.
By half time the Dogs were in front by 10 goals, and they eventually ran out 71-point winners, earning a berth in the Grand Final. Bailey Smith kicked four goals, while Macrae (36 disposals) and Bontempelli (20 touches and two goals) were again outstanding.
While this Sunday’s match against Port will take place at one of the AFL’s coldest venues, the Bulldogs and the Power also have a history at one of the League’s hottest: Marrara Oval in Darwin.
The Western Bulldogs ‘hosted’ Port at the venue six times between 2004 and 2013 and although Port Adelaide won the first two of those encounters, the last four all resulted in wins for the red, white and blue.
Those four victories included the Dogs’ biggest ever win over Port, a 93-point thrashing in 2009. Four Bulldogs – Daniel Cross, Adam Cooney, Callan Ward and Lindsay Gilbee – had more than 30 possessions for the match, while Brad Johnson (playing game number 336), Josh Hill and Will Minson each kicked three goals.
A year earlier the Dogs enjoyed another comprehensive win over Port at Marrara, by 54 points. Cross had also been a star that day, racking up 34 possessions, but what was arguably the game’s highlight unusually came from an opposition player, Port Adelaide’s David Rodan. At one point in the final quarter, Rodan bisected the big sticks with a beautiful drop punt and raised his arms in triumph, believing he’d kicked a goal, only to be informed by a smiling Brad Johnson that he had just kicked the ball through the Bulldogs’ goals! (These days Rodan is an AFL goal umpire himself, so presumably his goal sense has improved.)
Facing the same opponents they played in their first ever match at Mars Stadium, the Western Bulldogs will be looking to reverse that result this Saturday and make it three wins in a row.
