Western Bulldogs defender Issy Grant says she is hopeful the team can apply lessons from Round 5’s defeat into their upcoming match against Brisbane.

The Bulldogs went down to GWS by 21 points on Saturday, kicking 3.11 from 37 inside 50s.

Grant said while there’s no denying their conversion needs to improve, their ability to regularly get the ball in their forward half is a positive.

“Once we had a little bit more control we had a few more entries (inside 50) which was great, but finishing our work (wasn’t great),” she said post-match.

“We did so much hard work getting the ball into our forward 50 – our entries increased dramatically and that’s something we can take confidence out of – but finishing off our work and turning those points into goals would’ve turned the game around pretty quickly earlier on.”

Since her debut as a forward in 2021, Grant has since turned into one of the Dogs’ most reliable defenders.

But in the last quarter on Saturday, she was swung into attack to try and spark something.

“I think what’s really special about our group is that we’ve worked really hard on understanding how each of the lines play, so all of us are ready if those magnets ever get swung around,” she said.

“I got the opportunity to play forward (in the last quarter) which was very different, but I was just trying to think about what I wouldn’t want as a defender, and tried to do that to annoy my defender back.”

The Bulldogs will host Brisbane on Sunday 21 September at Mission Whitten Oval.

Grant, who will notch up game 50 in the process, is hopeful the team can return to playing their brand of footy.

“(GWS) obviously like to move the ball with their hands and we were hoping we would be able to break that down with our defensive method but we’ve got a bit of a habit of matching how other teams play,” she said.

“We really want to focus on our fundamentals and play our game, because we think our method is really strong when we play it right.

“Hopefully we can do that for four quarters next week.”