Pure Footy: David King, Daniel Hoyne lift lid on AFL trends, stats after Round 22

The Western Bulldogs’ premiership hopes are in danger of going up in smoke if they can’t correct some ‘bizarre’ stats. Watch Pure Footy.

The Western Bulldogs are “fighting a war without weapons” and are in danger of watching their premiership hopes disappear, according to North Melbourne champion David King.

The Dogs are suddenly fighting for their spot in the top four and have problems all over the field, including in their highly-touted midfield.

“Don’t worry about taking a knife to a gunfight, they haven’t even got the knife any more,” King said on Pure Footy, the weekly analysis show exclusive to heraldsun.com.au.

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“How do the Dogs beat Melbourne? How do they beat a Geelong? Port the same. Brisbane is shooting the lights out. They’ve got nothing to throw at them at the moment.

“(I’m) fascinated to see what happens this Friday night and see if they can correct some of those things ... get something you can throw at the dart board and challenge your opposition because if not, it’s all she wrote for me.”

The Bulldogs and Marcus Bontempelli have some tough questions to answer. Picture: Michael Klein

King’s co-host, Champion Data analyst Daniel Hoyne, said the Dogs’ “premiership profile” had evaporated over the past six weeks.

“They are just a mid-table contested footy team at the moment, which is bizarre when you look at the names through there,” Hoyne said.

“Their ball movement was No.1 in 2019 and No.1 in 2020 — they’re a mid-table ball movement team at the moment.

“Then on top of that at either end of the ground, they’ve got issues.

“They are the fourth-worst team at converting a (forward-50) entry into a score — not where you want to be right now — and they’re the easiest team in the competition to convert an entry against into a score — not where you want to be right now.

“This is becoming more of a trend.

“If that doesn’t change, they’re cooked.”

Also on this week’s show, can Geelong cover the loss of Tom Stewart, how Port Adelaide has got very lucky, the top five rated players in the competition in the past six weeks — and the players who need to lift at every finals contender.

Originally published as Pure Footy: David King, Daniel Hoyne lift lid on AFL trends, stats after Round 22