Deep dive: Inside look at what the Western Bulldogs’ win over GWS means for both sides
He was leading the charge for the Western Bulldogs against their arch enemy. But the fact Tom Liberatore was even playing on the big stage was something Luke Beveridge thought may never happen again.
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The Giants have been brought back to size.
And if they don’t get their skates on in the AFL’s most bizarre season, it could soon be too late.
For coach Leon Cameron, Friday night’s 24-point loss to the Western Bulldogs looked a world away from their deep-September presence of recent years.
Outplayed and outworked for the second week running, Cameron has a conundrum on his hands.
Yes, there were key players missing. But he was the first to admit that many of his players were simply out of form.
And it showed, with the task now to dig through the staff bag and desperately find the club — and playing style — that will blast them back on to football’s fairway.
“No, we’re not going to use excuses (that they’re still working into it) — everyone started at the same time,” Cameron said.
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“Are some sides a bit ahead than others at the moment? It’s only a small sample set, and clearly the two games that we’ve had haven’t been the right sample set that we’d like. We’ve had two good opposition that have been clearly method around the contest and clean. It’s been a lot better than what we have been.
“The back end of last year, I thought that was our one-wood and we’ve got to find a way to get that back. And that’s been a little bit disappointing.
“The effort across the board was better, but we’re probably killing ourselves with some of our clear fumbles and not being clean. Week by week you hope to get better … but we need to make it happen pretty quickly.”
The Giants, who were -15 for inside 50s and -17 for tackles for the night, simply have to “wake up”.
“I think a lot of sides are going to ebb and flow throughout the next 14 or 15 weeks, but we need to wake up and make sure there’s some good stuff that we take out of this game and we learn from it and in seven days’ time we’re better and then we’re better than before,” Cameron said.
Collingwood awaits next week. There will be nowhere to hide.
DOGS FEARED LIBBA WAS DONE
- Chris Cavanagh
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has revealed he feared Tom Liberatore would never play an AFL game again as recently as a month ago.
Liberatore returned for the Bulldogs against Greater Western Sydney on Friday night for his first game since Round 20 last year, having overcome his latest knee issues.
The 28-year-old ruptured his right ACL in Round 1, 2018 and had further surgery last year due to cartilage damage.
“I must admit for a long period of time, even up until probably a month ago I had my doubts that he’d ever play AFL footy again,” Beveridge said on Fox Footy’s Saturday Countdown.
“He’s been through such an ordeal coming back from knee reconstructions and if you were in the inner sanctum and watched him limp around, he’s in rehab and then you think he’s almost back to full fitness and still there’s a limp, you’d have significant concerns.
“What’s transpired over the last three weeks is probably a bit of a surprise for me.”
Liberatore had 18 disposals and logged four clearances in his return, Beveridge saying he made a “huge difference”.
“He’s one of those teammates that you love playing with,” Beveridge said.
“The boys, as soon as they hear he’s picked, grin like Cheshire Cats. He was really important for us.”
WHAT THE (UGLY) STATS SAID
To put it simply, the Giants aren’t giving themselves a chance.
They recorded their lowest amount of forward half disposals in a match. Ever.
What chance do the likes of Jeremy Cameron and Harry Himmelberg have if the ball isn’t even getting down there?
A whopping 73 per cent of the Giants’ game was in its defensive half, with turnovers then accounting for the majority of the Dogs’ goals.
Giants forwards were stifled, with Cameron, Himmelberg and Jeremy Finlayson combining for just 21 disposals and eight marks between them.
IT’S REAL
It’s football’s best new rivalry, but Cameron was left to lament just how his team harnessed the hatred.
They came looking for a fight, and got one in the form of a Dogs outfit desperate to atone after spending 12 weeks off the winners’ list.
While the 2016 preliminary final and last year’s elimination chapter spring to mind, former Dogs skipper Bob Murphy revealed this week that the Western Bulldogs’ spicy recent history with the league’s newest club stemmed from a now almost mythical sledge.
“We played a pre-season game … for the life of me I can’t remember who said it … one of them said to us, ‘Bulldogs, you’re the worst club in the history of the game’,” Murphy said on Fox Footy.
“It started that night, there were a lot of little spotfires around the ground.
“Do you know why it’s a good rivalry? Because it started when both teams were s**t.
“You’ve got both sides, a 100-year-old football club and one brand new, we just happened to be at the same stage at the same time with a few older blokes and a batch of younger kids … the rivalry kept escalating and escalating just through a natural arc of how the teams were going and then it reaches its fever point.”
Friday night it did just that. Marcus Bontempelli was the Giants’ prime target after last year’s incident with Nick Haynes, but Cameron said he would have to address the balance with his players.
“The aggression’s there but we need to make sure we do it in the right way,” he said.
“The free kick count was -10 again. You’re handing the ball back to the opposition 10 times, you’re giving them 10 free hits. We have to be better at that.
“That means we’re second to the footy. We need to make sure that we’re hunting after the opposition to get the ball back a bit better. We need to hunt the ball a bit better ourselves.
“Equally also you want to play the game in the right manner and the right spirit and it’s a fine line that every player from every club runs.
“We’ll address it like a number of other areas and if it makes us a better team because we might have overstepped the mark, then absolutely.”
Magpie Mason Cox welcomed what Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge called an old fashioned “brouhaha”.
Really hoping the scuffles in footy become more regular. Something unique to the sport and a great part of the game. I know the league is looking to minimize them by handing out fines but c’mon man let them go! #AFLDogsGiants
— Mason Cox (@masonsixtencox) June 19, 2020
CAPTAIN’S KNOCK
MARCUS Bontempelli bore the brunt of criticism in recent weeks, and felt it, too.
His coach said that the 24-year-old had felt the pressure going into Friday night’s game, but the way he withstood the early battering and the close attention of credentialed stopper Matt de Boer deserves accolade.
He was well-held early, hit with mind games from the coin toss and roughed up in the first half before getting his revenge.
“This could be his growth,” said coaching great and Sunday Herald Sun columnist Mick Malthouse, who had turned the blowtorch on Bontempelli after Round 1.
“It’s not his mass numbers, it’s his effectiveness.
“This could well be the catalyst for him to be the captain that he wants to be.”
And he had support, with guilt something of a driving factor for the Dogs.
“I don’t think I needed to speak about it much,” Beveridge said.
“The boys felt like they let him down last year. They wanted to make amends.
“There’s a handful in the team that didn’t play in that game (last year), so they were proactive and we’ll need to be every week.
“(Friday night) will do him the world of good. He’s built himself up, he’s felt the pressure, but all the while he’s been vocal and he’s been looking for answers and solutions. That’s what great leaders do.”
OVER TO YOU, TRAVIS
THE league will announce its fixture for at least Round 6 on Monday or Tuesday.
They’re hopeful of another week, but the West Australian government continues to stand firm on its hard border.
Either way, all eyes will be on the Thursday and Friday night timeslot.
Awarded to traditional “blockbuster slot” teams over the last fortnight, we’re 0-4 for fantastic games under the broadcast spotlight so far.
There’s been low-scoring slogs – which aren’t exactly loved by broadcasters, desperate for advertising revenue after goals – and games bereft of thrill.
Meanwhile other teams who are recent strangers to the spotlight have been delivering the goods.
League boss of clubs and broadcasting Travis Auld is the man with the job and remains in the task up to his ears, a late withdrawal from a Friday night radio interview as the conference calls continued.
He famously said in May that the likes of Gold Coast and St Kilda would need to be playing “really competitive and exciting brands of football” to get their games off pay TV and on to free-to-air.
HAIR-RAISING DOG
WHAT about that Bailey Smith?
It might well be one of the best haircuts in football in a throwback to the good old days at Whitten Oval.
Taken at pick seven in the 2018 draft, Smith just didn’t stop against the Giants and finished with 17 touches, three tackles and a goal.
Just pure value, just 19 years of age.
And did we mention his hair?
“I cut my own hair,” he revealed post-game.
“I haven’t cut the back, that’s why it’s so long. I don’t know how to do that.”
‘PECULIAR’ OR PETTY?
IT was the most talked about coin toss of the year — maybe in years.
Giants skipper Stephen Coniglio, in just his third game as captain, handed the duties to teammate Nick Haynes to face off with Bontempelli, the pair famously having clashed in an incident last August that left Haynes with a fractured larynx and the Dogs star without sanction.
By design, clearly, leaving Beveridge perplexed.
“It was peculiar,” he said. “I wasn’t sure whether he had a milestone. If he didn’t, it was strange.”
Beveridge recalled last year’s “incidental” incident as when Haynes “left his kick really late, and slid under Marcus’ shoulder”.
Cameron, however, maintained that there was little to the quirky pre-game call.
“We give a lot of opportunities to our leadership group,” he said.
“I think ‘Cogs’ was addressing the group, so he sent Nick in. I think it’s a great opportunity to show some leadership in all different facets.
“I’ve got more problems than worrying about who tosses the coin, like nutting down and making sure our contested ball is right and our ball movement is right.”
LIBBA DELIVERED
IT took 320 days for Tom Liberatore to get back into red, white and blue and he made his presence felt both inside and outside the contest.
“I thought ‘Libba’ made a difference,” Beveridge said.
“His work in the phone box early in the game was quite outstanding. His hands are brilliant. He went out and he put some physical pressure on. I thought he was great up around the stoppage, supported our mids and he did some work on the outside which was great to see.
“It’s a good step in the right direction for him. It’s been a long road back from the knee injuries, and it’s fantastic to see him back in the colours and performing the way he did tonight for the team.”
IF THE ROOMS ARE ROCKIN …
THE volume from the Western Bulldogs’ rooms post-game didn’t go unnoticed.
With no crowd and a significant lack of post-game atmosphere, the Bulldogs were left to generate their own and boy, did they what.
The ruckus carried throughout the hallways of Marvel Stadium. They’d earned that one, and deserved to enjoy it, only club staff permitted within the changerooms due to coronavirus restrictions.
“It always is a pressure release,” Beveridge said.
“The players are aware of the outside noise and the perception in the public domain. The thing that is really critical at this level is that you keep your emotions and your thoughts within the building and take care of what you can control.
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“But there’s no doubt that the boys have felt it, because they feel like they’ve let our supporters down at different times and in a sense let each other down. And even staff — we’ve been through big change with having to stand down people and the players have felt all that.
“At every club, they’ve been under some emotional strain, and I think what you heard was probably a release, and an outcry of passion and emotion to feel good about themselves as a team. It’s only one victory, but it was an important one for us, and it’s important that you enjoy them.”
Originally published as Deep dive: Inside look at what the Western Bulldogs’ win over GWS means for both sides
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