A disappointing night for the Dogs at Marvel Stadium as they were outclassed by a more experienced Swans team. 

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

On Aaron Naughton:

“He’s going to go home now and he’ll have his neck looked at tomorrow.

“He appears to have strained down that side of his neck from the incident.

“The bright side is there are no signs of concussion, but we’ll have to report in once we get something more definitive from a scan.”

On re-aligning after 3/4 time:

“It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for that.

“There’s a disparity in many things in the game tonight. We started off the game in good fashion. The things that we spoke about beforehand came to the fore.

“As the night went on, we probably needed our more experienced really influencing the game.

“Marcus was, but we didn’t have enough elsewhere. That helps the younger guys come up to speed a little bit.

“[Sydney] were just more vibrant. Their speed, their work across the ground – they pressured us into aspects of the game that you don’t want to be accustomed to.

“It turned really, really ugly for us.

“15 back-half turnovers in that last quarter we gave.

“That’s skill, that’s composure, that’s fatigue – many things.

“We’ve got to work through that together and remain optimistic.

“I just said to the players that I’m not a coach that won’t talk to their players after a difficult loss.

“Sometimes it is difficult to know what to say.

“My message to them was that we’re here to support you. We’re here to look for the next, best version of ourselves and whether that’s next week or in six weeks’ time.

“We’ve just got to deal with injury toll and encourage and help the boys believe that they’re good enough to be in a winning Western Bulldogs team.”

On the first-half game style:

“We found each other in space and we used the short ones when we needed to.

“As the game wore on – whether there was a degree of panic or give them credit for their pressure – we couldn’t afford to play the long kick-to-contest game tonight. We weren’t set up for it. The make-up of our team wasn’t going to be able to support that aspect of using the ball.

“We fell into a set of circumstances where they just capitalised. I think they had 23 intercept marks and, ultimately, the stuff in close they got out of congestion better than us. On turnover, they seemed to outnumber us and they just got us everywhere after that quarter and a half.

“Our counter defence was pretty poor. We weren’t able to stop some of that overlap and then our backs weren’t able to defend those open plays enough. It was a pretty ugly set of circumstances.”

On the physicality in the game:

“It’s part of it. The outwork, outlast – whether you want to take the ‘Survivor’ motto, I’m not sure.

“We were keeping up.

“We didn’t feel uncomfortable. There was a pride in what we were doing.

“But it fell apart. That’s concerning.

“The players, they’re doing their best – they’re hurting.

“The capability side of it, you’re never totally sure. All we can do as coaches and as a support for our players is to continue to prod, poke and look for the improvements week to week.

“We got beaten by a pretty good team tonight, but we’ll remain positive.”

On the turnovers:

“When you’ve got no layers behind those turnovers and it comes back in. Curnow was quite exceptional one-on-one. None of our backs could stop him from marking those contested marks.

“That’s disappointing. We think we should be a bit better than that. He had a very influential game.

“There weren’t a hell of a lot of stoppages tonight. But when the ball – in turnover circumstances – you can still get the ball back whether it’s off your boot or theirs. We couldn’t get any fluidity from that.

“They went back in and scored a bit too easily.”

On the reunion:

“I said I wouldn’t really go into history because I don’t like to compare teams. The authentication of your current group and the empowerment of where you want them to go is really important.

“We did use some of the aspects. We used ‘Biggsy’s’ desperation and modelled ourselves a bit on that. Have a bit of a vision of each of you performing those sort of acts.

“We talked about the role plays in that Grand Final.

"What probably isn’t common knowledge is that ‘Joey’ Kennedy was getting the better of us at half-time and there were some changes made during that period.

"Players really took up added responsibility and that’s what the team did back then.

"They inspired each other, they had a real sense of conscience to feed the team. That’s what we’re searching for, that’s where we’re trying to head with our current group.

“I think everyone in the room knows that I’ve never used experience and games played as an excuse because it can happen quickly. Even our Premiership team in 2016 was a pretty young team. That’s what I say – you’re all capable.

“A bit of experience probably got us tonight as well.”

On Bontempelli and injury concerns heading into the game: 

“He charted his own course early in the week that he was going to play.

“We did it a little bit differently in the lead-up.

“Because he was so positive about it, I didn’t really think he wasn’t going to play.

“He got through alright. He’s a little bit sore.

“As I said in the presser pre-game, there aren’t many teams who don’t have a group of sore bodies heading into each game.

“He’s got an eight-day break on this one. We don’t play until Friday, it gives him a bit more time. He should be OK and recover a bit better.”

On Lachie Smith, Jedd Busslinger and some of the other inclusions:

“I thought Jed’s game was encouraging.

“Lachie Smith, he went OK. As the game wore on – Grundy really took control of his position and pushed forward really hard too. That gave us some headaches.

“Young Louis Emmett fought the good fight. It was probably the one position we knew we were really up against it when it started.

“As it unfolded, there were more and more match-ups that were well in Sydney’s favour.

“They did their best and there are some encouraging signs.”

On Bontempelli following the game:

“He’s an influencer. He’s an authority and he’s a powerful character.

“He wants to take people with him.

“His expectations are high no matter who is playing with him.

“He is like all of us and wants things now and he’s pushing to get it.

“We all need to understand what we can influence and control and he’s working through that in his own leadership capacity.

“He’s always a tremendous support for his team-mates.

“On nights like this there was always going to be an element of frustration with everything and everyone.

“He’s probably feeling a fair bit of that.”

On Tim English, Tom Liberatore and Rory Lobb returns:

“I can’t really give you anything definitive on either, really.

“Tim didn’t move too well the other day, so I wouldn’t think he’s available next week.

“We’ll tread really carefully with Tom. I’m not sure whether he’s available next week.”

“(Lobb) will be out for a while. He’ll be out for a month.

“He got through a bit of training, he felt OK. Then he felt it in another spot a bit lower down, so we scanned it again and something showed up that was a bit risky.

“We’ll need to be conservative with him. The initial signs were that he got a knock, a bit of bleeding probably from that. Then, subsequently, in another spot he had some discomfort.

“It showed up as something that could turn into something worse.

“He’ll be out for a good month as well.”

On Adam Treloar’s return:

“Adam has always been a star in close.

“He’s not quite the Adam Treloar we’ve known historically. He played really well last week in Geelong in the twos.

“The time was right to get him going again.

“We’ll keep working through it with ‘Adsy’ and what he’s got left in the tank.

“He’s got up extremely well to get up and play again with everything that he’s run into over the course of last year.

“It’ll be a week-to-week thing with Adam.”

On the impact of injury on team form:

“It’s the two ‘c’ words: capacity and capability. It’s both of those things.

“We’ve got a lot of boys who haven’t played a lot of footy yet and they’re just finding out what AFL footy is about.

“Even when you think about the two young ruckmen playing against Brodie Grundy, it’s a fascinating watch really.

“All we can do is support those lads.

“Form ends up being linked to those things; it’s just a spin-out of the origins of capability and capacity.

“Sometimes that’s linked to inexperience.

“You still need your more experienced players to give you a bit more of a chance and they just didn’t have quite enough influence tonight.”