The Dogs were unable to get the job done in Round 18 against the Crows, going down by 11 points at Marvel Stadium on Saturday afternoon. 

With points critical to secure a place in the top eight, the Western Bulldogs now must regroup and prepare for another tough opposition in reigning premiers the Brisbane Lions.

Here's what Senior Coach Luke Beveridge had to say to the media following the game. 

On another loss against a top-eight team:

“I know that’s the narrative, but ultimately, you can look at it in two ways: a really pessimistic way—like that—or an optimistic one, where we’ve put ourselves in a position to at least be in the mix and give ourselves a chance at the end of the year.

“As far as the scoreline and the way the game played out, and the history repeating itself against a pretty good team—I agree with you.

“Our biggest disappointment this afternoon was how we started the game: the broken tackles and probably not using the ball as we’d like to under pressure.

“That really put us on the back foot. Thirty entries to a team like Adelaide in the first half is far too many. We tightened up and were better in the second half in terms of territory and what we were doing.

“Far too many scoring shots from those opportunities. When you’re trying to isolate what that may be, it’s breakdowns in contest—even though we won contested possession, it didn’t feel like we were on top of that. I was surprised, looking at the stat sheet, that they only took that many contested marks; it seemed like they took a lot more.

“In the aerial game, we definitely lowered our colours.

“The three inside real leaders—Marcus, Tom and Ed—tried to will us over the line. We just didn’t have enough today to complement their influence.

“We’ve got some challenges, but I remain optimistic that we can continue to improve.

“Under the circumstances, it’s a pretty disappointing afternoon against a team we see as a really good side.”

On the backline and selection:

“If you go and look at what happened in all of those instances, it was usually a key back on a key forward where they were marking.

“You can make the case either way—can the key back do a little better in preparation when it broke down up the field?

“Was that ball movement too fluent, was it too hard to stop, and did it play into their key forwards’ hands?

“Riley Thilthorpe in particular was a colossus down there, and we couldn’t negate him enough at all.

“I know what the speculation is around how many key backs you play and all of that. But ultimately, our game, our system, and our optimism around players coming up to speed on how we want to play remains.

“I didn’t feel comfortable at any time this afternoon. I didn’t feel like we played that way—and yet we scored 98 points.

“As we’re talking, we gave up way too much strike rate in terms of their opportunities. There’s a lot to tidy up, but we’ve got to start the game better than that.”

On individual performances from Bontempelli and Naughton: 

“The Sydney game was probably a prime example where, at the end of that game, we were singing Joel Freijah’s praises, Ryley Sanders’ praises, Lachie Bramble’s—probably the guys we’re asking to find the next level in that game.

“In that game (Bontempelli and Naughton) weren’t that prolific.

“It doesn’t matter which team it is—if you don’t get a really even spread of the players’ best contributions, you’re going to be vulnerable.

“We had far too many who probably weren’t at their best this afternoon, so we’ve got to pick them up, encourage, urge, and recover pretty quickly.

“We’ve got to go to the Gabba on Thursday and prepare for a really important game against the Lions.

“We’ll look to get a much better spread of contribution in the next one—otherwise, we’re going to have our backs against the wall against the Lions.”

On Naughton’s rejuvenation:

“He was influential.

“When you talk about their key forwards, he was a pretty big handful for their backs.

“He’s going reasonably well, Naughts.”