2016, R07 WESTERN BULLDOGS vs ADELAIDE
Just over 10 years ago the Western Bulldogs took on Adelaide at Marvel Stadium looking to cement a place in the top four. The Dogs went into the game with a 4-2 record, the equal of four other clubs, but their huge percentage of 155.8 had them fourth on the ladder.
Their Adelaide opponents on that Saturday evening were part of that 4-2 group, and a win for the Crows would see them leapfrog the Bulldogs on the table. Such high stakes made this match a crucial one in terms of the 2016 season.
Adding to gravity to the encounter was the fact that the Dogs had lost to North Melbourne a week earlier. Granted, North were the undefeated ladder leaders, and the loss had been a relatively narrow 16 points, but a second consecutive loss would potentially undo the fine work Luke Beveridge’s men had pit in during the first six weeks of the season.
One other factor loomed large for the home team that evening – their opponents had brought their 2015 campaign to an end in heartbreaking circumstances the previous September. In a high-scoring shootout at the MCG the Dogs and Crows had played out a thriller, with Adelaide just ahead when the final siren sounded.
These factors combined to make this match a test of the Bulldogs’ resilience, and their ability to handle a high-pressure scenario. How would they handle such a test? It would take another nerve-wracking, high-scoring shootout to answer that question.
The early signs were good for the Dogs. Although the Crows drew first blood with a goal to tall forward Josh Jenkins, the Dogs answered quickly through Tory Dickson, and from midway through the opening quarter the Bulldogs began to assert their authority, kicking four goals to none (including a second for Dickson) to take a 24-point lead into the quarter-time break.
Further goals to Mitch Wallis and Jake Stringer in the opening minutes of the second term extended the margin to 36 points, and it appeared that the Bulldogs had very much met and conquered the pressure-filled challenge they’d faced.
However, the Crows would pull themselves up off the canvas several times over the next couple of hours, forcing the Dogs to pass several more tests.
The first of those came almost as soon as the Bulldogs had opened up that six-goal lead. The Crows dominated the next 15 minutes, converting that dominance into four straight goals, including a second and third to Jenkins, cutting the home side’s lead back to 14 points.
Meeting the challenge once more, the Bulldogs, with majors to Caleb Daniel and Jack Redpath either side of the half-time break, pulled away once more to lead by 26 points, but Adelaide immediately launched another, fiercer counterattack. The Crows put together another run of four goals, this time in a burst of just six minutes.
Suddenly the Dogs’ lead was a razor-thin two points. What’s more, Adelaide’s four-goal burst had included two more to their beanpole full forward Jenkins. The big Crow now had five majors of his own and the Dogs were struggling to contain his influence.
Jake Stringer was doing his best to turn the tide back the Dogs’ way, halting the Crows’ run with his third goal, and a couple of new-breed Bulldogs, 19-year-old Bailey Dale and 20-year-old Marcus Bontempelli, followed up with two more. Heading into time-on, the Dogs had again opened up a comfortable margin of 23 points.
The comfort was short-lived, though. Goals to Rory Atkins and the seemingly unstoppable Jenkins reduced the margin to two goals before Redpath booted his third on the stroke of three-quarter time.
A margin of 18 points at the last change of ends might usually be seen as relatively comfortable, but few who had witnessed what had unfolded so far at Marvel Stadium on this night, believed it was this time.
Bulldogs fans who held such concerns were proved right, despite Jake Stringer’s fourth goal early in the final term taking the Dogs’ lead out to 24 points. Once again, the Crows responded almost instantaneously, with two goals in two minutes, the latter of those a seventh major for Jenkins.
Ten minutes in, it was the Dogs by 12 points. Tory Dickson’s third goal increased that to 18 but in a blink of an eye Crows Taylor Walker and Charlie Cameron kicked truly to reduce the margin to just six points, with the final term not yet halfway through.
Over the next 15 minutes, for the first time in the match, goals became hard to come by, as both sides’ defences fought valiantly to blunt opposition forwards. The Dogs surged forward several times during that period but were unable to land a knockout punch, their desperate efforts yielding only three behinds, one rushed, and one each to Bontempelli and Dale.
Having controlled play for an extended period without finding a goal, the Bulldogs ceded possession to Adelaide, producing what almost seemed to be a scripted moment for the Crows. In an instant, the Crows swept the ball from defence to attack. With the Bulldogs’ own defenders caught out of position, the ball found its way to an unguarded Josh Jenkins, whose eighth goal brought Adelaide within three points.
It looked for all the world as if Adelaide was about to steal victory, reprising the heartbreak of eight months earlier. But the Dogs were not about to let that happen.
Fittingly it was the two Bulldogs who had missed chances to seal victory earlier in the term who ensure the Dogs would not be denied. With the match in the balance, Bontempellii, playing AFL game number 44, found himself on the end of a clever kick from Dale. With the match on the line, The Bont launched a perfect left-foot kick from behind 50 to bisect the goalposts. Moments later, Dale, in only his 13th match, added an exclamation mark to the win with his own goal.
When the siren sounded, the Bulldogs had prevailed, 123 v 108, but the final margin of 15 points was not a fair reflection of such a titanic struggle. Along with his two goals, Bontempelli had 30 disposals in what was arguably his most influential game yet (although he only received two Brownlow Medal votes, the umpires awarding three to eight-goal Crow Jenkins). Jake Stringer was also excellent for the Dogs, as were Tom Liberatore, Luke Dahlhaus, Dickson, Redpath and the typically rock-solid Dale Morris in defence.
For the Bulldogs this was a win full of character, and one that would stand them in good stead over the next four months. During that period, they would face many tough challenges, some of them nigh on impossible, and overcame them all.
Round 7, 2016
Western Bulldogs 18.15.123 d Adelaide 17.6.108
Goals: Stringer 4; Dickson, Redpath 3; Daniel, Dale, Bontempelli 2; Liberatore, Wallis
Best: Bontempelli, Liberatore, Stringer, Dahlhaus, Wallis, Morris
Brownlow Medal votes: Josh Jenkins (Adel) 3, Marcus Bontempelli 2, Jake Stringer 1
