Western Bulldogs
Coach – Luke Beveridge
2024 –
Points For – 2nd
Points Against – 1st
Top 5 Best and Fairest
1 – The Bont
=2 – Adam Treloar
=2 – Bailey Dale
4 – Liam Jones
5 – Ed Richards
2024 Rising Star Noms
Harvey Gallagher – (Rnd 3)
Sam Darcy – (Rnd 4)
Ins – Sam Davidson, Josh Dolan, Cooper Hynes, Lachie Jaques, Luke Kennedy, Matt Kennedy
Outs – Bailey Smith, Jack Macrae, Caleb Daniel, Alex Keath, Dominic Bedando, Charlie Clarke, Aiden O’Driscoll, Kelsey Rypstra
My Prediction
There has been few greater teases in the last 20 years than the Bulldogs. I know they won one almost 10 years ago and they have made another grand final but their list should have produced more regular top four finishes and been a challenger for longer. They have a lot of quality players that do nowhere near as much as their talent would suggest they are capable of. This surely comes down to the coach who is riding his premiership for job security as long as he can.
The backline relies on the Liam Jones who has been a great stopper since returning and the discovery that Lobb can actually serve a purpose was a surprise to the entire footballing world. Dale, Richards and Duryea give them run off half back and pretty good ball use. Their starting backline is good but they are only a KP injury away from disaster.
The midfield relies on Bont and Libba to get the work done. Treloar was solid enough last year but to be honest, if it wasn’t for the sensible 90’s flat top I wouldn’t know he was on the park most of the time. They would have liked Smith to have stayed and got back up and running but it wasn’t to be. Sanders, Gallagher and Williams will have to do some of the heavy lifting this year. They brought in Matt Kennedy, he wont add much, I just think its funny.
The forward line is full of talent, a little less since JUH has stepped away for his “mental health”. Sam Darcy is probably the best young talent in the game (unless you ask a Collingwood supporter). Naughton may have peaked as he doesn’t seem to be improving but where he is now is still pretty good. Weightman and West provide small forward pressure and scoring. It is a good forward line that may even benefit from being forced to run two talls rather than three.
The ruck in Tim English is boring and may be a little injured. He doesn’t seem to have lived up to his potential just yet but still sits comfortably in the top half of the rucks. The coach is a fraud. He needs to produce something this year other than another tantrum. Scraping into finals last year with the list he has wasn’t good enough.
The dogs have a good list. They don’t have many gaps despite losing a little bit of quality over the off season, I don’t think any of those outs are life changing for them. They have a top four list but need to win more games. I suspect another year of being not quite good enough might be enough for a change of coach. I don’t rate their attitude or hunger and think they will settle again for 7-9.