This season is only the seventh in VFL/AFL history to feature 24 home-and-away rounds, but this Sunday’s Western Bulldogs v Fremantle encounter will not be the first to take place in Round 24.
The Bulldogs and Dockers crossed swords in the 24th and final round of the 2011 season, a game that offered the Dogs a chance to finish a disappointing year on a high. Three weeks earlier, when it became clear they would miss September action, the Club parted ways with coach Rodney Eade who had taken the team to three consecutive preliminary finals in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
Assistant coach Paul Williams took the reins for the final three rounds and led the Bulldogs into their final match of 2011 having recorded a win against Port Adelaide and a loss to Hawthorn in his first two games in charge.
That final-round match against Fremantle was at the Bulldogs’ Docklands home, where they will meet again this Sunday. With the Dockers 10th on the ladder with nine wins and the Dogs 13th with nine wins, the game provided the home side with a chance to leapfrog Freo on the ladder.
In the end the Doggies did just that, although it took until the final term for them to shake off the Dockers. For the first three quarters the game was a scrappy affair, with both teams plagued by poor kicking for goal. At the last change of ends the Dogs led 8.15.63 to 6.13.49, with the match still up for grabs.
It remained that way for the first 10 minutes of the final quarter. The Bulldogs squandered two more shots at goal with misses to Barry Hall and Ryan Griffen, and when Fremantle’s Tendai Mzungu goaled at the six-minute mark, the Dockers were within 10 points.
Remarkably, after more than three quarters of poor accuracy, Mzungu’s major kicked off a run of nine goals without a miss between the two sides to close out the match.
Of the eight goals that came after Mzungu’s, the Bulldogs kicked seven, eventually running out winners by the comfortable margin of 46 points. The Dogs’ avalanche of seven goals in 20 minutes was sparked by Patrick Vezpremi at the 10-minute mark, with Ryan Griffen following up a couple of minutes later.
From that moment it became the Barry Hall Show. Big Barry had had a quiet afternoon, registering only a single major in the second quarter, but he exploded in the last 15 minutes to kick four of the Dogs’ last five goals. The Hall avalanche was broken only by Luke Dahlhaus, who kicked the second-last of the match.
Bulldog skipper Matthew Boyd led the way for the winners, collecting 35 touches and laying seven tackles. Griffen (28 disposals and two goals) and Daniel Cross (29 possessions and 11 tackles) were also great contributors.
Boyd’s efforts earned him the maximum three Brownlow Medal votes, while 21-year-old Callan Ward was awarded one for his 21-possession game. That game was Ward’s 60th, but it would be his last as a Bulldog. The following season he joined the AFL’s newest team, Greater Western Sydney, and as a Giant he played another 267 games before a knee injury forced his retirement earlier this year.
Over the past quarter of a century the Western Bulldogs have taken on the Dockers 15 times at Marvel Stadium, winning nine. The most recent of those came in Round 15 last year, with the Dogs recording a big win. A typically commanding performance from captain Marcus Bontempelli helped the Dogs increase their lead at each end change to record an imperious 67-point victory.
Bontempelli had 30 disposals and seven clearances, topped off by three goals. Unsurprisingly, that performance earned ‘The Bont’ three Brownlow votes. With 30 possessions each, Bailey Dale (two) and Lachie Bramble (one) claimed the other votes, while Rhylee West (four goals, 13 possessions and five tackles) was probably unlucky to miss out.
Last year’s victory is not the biggest the Dogs have had against Fremantle at Marvel Stadium. That came in Round 17, 2010 when the Bulldogs were looking to claim a place in the top four. The Dogs went into the match sitting fifth, a game behind their opponents for the day.
The match promised to be a cracker, and it was – provided you were a Bulldogs fan. The Dogs were ‘on’ from the start, and within the blink of an eye had four goals on the board. By quarter time they had nine and led by 39 points. The margin grew in each of the remaining three terms, Eade’s men handing out an 82-point thrashing in the end.
Stars for the Bulldogs included 2008 Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney (36 disposals and a goal), Griffen (24 and three) and Cross (31 possessions and eight tackles, while full forward Hall kicked four goals.
The biggest crowd to witness a match at Marvel between the Bulldogs and Fremantle is the 27,832 who came to see the teams’ opening game of 2016, with Bulldogs fans keen to see if their team could build on the dramatic improvement shown under first-year coach Luke Beveridge in 2015. They did not have to wait long to find out.
It took just 21 seconds for the Bulldogs to set the tone for what would be a magical season, with the trusty midfield trio of Jack Macrae, Tom Liberatore and Marcus Bontempelli combining (with the help of a slick handball from Liam Picken) to kick the first goal of the Doggies’ 2016 campaign.
By quarter time the Dogs had seven goals and Fremantle – who had played in a Grand Final in 2013 and finished top four in 2014 – had none. The Dockers’ first goal did not come until the 17-minute mark of the second quarter and after they had registered their fifth and final goal in the opening minutes of the last term, the Bulldogs closed out the game as they’d opened it – with five straight goals – to crush Fremantle by 65 points.
Ironically the Bulldogs went down to the Dockers when they met again in Perth in the final home-and-away round of 2016, but that proved to be a mere hiccup. The Dogs charged their way to a premiership with four consecutive wins over the following month.
That crowd record set in 2016 will almost certainly be beaten when the Dogs and Dockers meet again this Sunday, and the vast majority of those who come to Marvel Stadium will be very happy to witness a similar result.
