Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says while he is happy to come away with a win, there are some things to be tidied up ahead of this weekend’s Gather Round clash with the Hawks.
The Bulldogs are the last remaining undefeated team in the league following a 34-point win over Essendon on Easter Sunday night.
But after a seven-to-one goal opening quarter, Beveridge said the rest of the game wasn’t quite the way he’d like his side to play.
“I’m always happy to come away with the four points, as the old adage says, but it would have been a pretty ugly game to watch,” Beveridge said post-match.
“Quarter-time we were, I suppose, feeling reasonably good about ourselves – we knew that Essendon would come here today and put designs on the contest and the physical side of things.
“We needed to weather that early and get on top…(which) we did, but after quarter-time the game fell away for us.
“You give Essendon credit for their pressure, but just the blatant turnover stuff…we just didn’t seem like ourselves.”
Further compounding the loss of midfielder Ed Richards just before the siren to knee soreness, was having ruck Tim English and forward Arty Jones removed at three-quarter time with their own injury concerns.
Despite this, Beveridge was proud of the way his young side battled through.
“The flow and effect of, let's say, Libba and Richo coming out means that Ryley Sanders, Joel Freijah - they've got extra responsibility,” he said.
“It means that Josh Dolan has got extra responsibility and the wingers have (too).
“It did mean over the course of the night we needed to keep a few guys out there a bit longer when we were down to just the three (on the bench), so there was fatigue in the game, but we're happy to drive out of here with a win.
“Albeit that it's hard to really process it at the moment because obviously the Bombers have been in a bit of a predicament and as much as we expected them to come with some vigour, we felt we should have played better.”
Richards, English and Jones will be sent for scans to determine the extent of their respective concerns.
The Bulldogs will meet Hawthorn in Gather Round on Saturday night.
