AFL 2023: Western Bulldogs analysis after loss to Geelong
He’s been tried forward, in the ruck and on the wing. After signing a four-year contract following a trade from Fremantle, where does he fit into the Bulldogs’ plans?
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge asked his players two questions inside Marvel Stadium on Saturday night.
1. Was it greasy?
2. Was there dew under the roof?
It was not April Fool’s Day.
The turnovers by foot committed in what appeared to be pristine conditions – albeit in what was a high-quality match against Geelong – had the premiership coach wondering, what on earth was going on?
“You would have noted that we sort of blatantly gave the ball back to them too many times in their front half,” Beveridge said.
“In open field and taking the ball across the ground we just didn’t execute well by foot, which is a real shame because we had some looks.
“At times our ball movement looked really promising – but it just broke down.”
The evening began skilfully. Scintillating passes from Marcus Bontempelli to Cody Weightman and then Weightman to Aaron Naughton unlocked the game’s first goal.
Weightman’s penetrating ball in the third quarter found Jamarra Ugle-Hagan alone in the goalsquare while Tom Liberatore (who is now 0-11 against the Cats) kicked it to Jackson Macrae in the second term.
But otherwise the connection combusted. Champion Data’s kick rating measure read poorly for Bailey Williams (-12 per cent) and hamstrung star Ed Richards (-15 per cent).
Only six of Oskar Baker’s 17 kicks hit a target while it was hard to go past Bailey Smith as a key culprit.
Only four of Smith’s 14 kicks were effective – the other 10 were ineffective or clangers.
One sailed out on the full and others were picked off by the likes of Tom Stewart.
Smith’s ball use has been scratchy for much of the season. He is rated as the fifth-worst kick in the AFL out of the 174 players who have recorded 100 or more kicks.
That’s due to his kick rating of -10 per cent. Against the Cats Smith went at -18 per cent.
It’s worth pointing out that Smith did enjoy a super patch in recent wins.
He was best-afield against Adelaide in Ballarat, excelled against Carlton captain Patrick Cripps and solid against GWS in Canberra.
The Dogs did so much right against Geelong before their intensity dissolved. Did last week’s Darwin heat sap their energy?
Perhaps a little. But they out-pressured Geelong, won contested ball and inside-50s and lost the game.
THE GOALKICKING YIPS
As the clock approached 11pm on Saturday night Lachie McNeil ran solo laps of Marvel Stadium in his full playing kit.
You wonder if he was replaying one kick over and over in his head. McNeil’s set-shot from 20m (after a 50m penalty) would’ve just about squared the scoreboard approaching the final change.
It was the substitute’s only kick for the night. But McNeil shanked it and the Dogs did not kick another goal.
Their two majors for the second half was unforgivable. It was also predictable based on previous evidence.
In the past three weeks the Dogs have kicked 32 goals from 89 shots (36 per cent).
They got out of jail with 11.19 against Adelaide thanks to their brilliant backline, but have gone home kicking their own behinds after kicking too many behinds against Gold Coast and Geelong.
These are Champion Data’s expected scores for their past three games: 100-56 against the Crows (they won 85-40), 88-74 against the Suns (they lost 77-84) and 89-88 against the Cats (they lost 75-97).
If the Dogs had won all three, as had been statistically expected except for their finishing, they would sit a game clear in third on the AFL ladder.
That would’ve set up a top-four heavyweight battle on Friday night against a Port Adelaide line-up shooting for its 10th consecutive win and ninth-straight win at Docklands.
What a missed opportunity.
The last time Port lost under the roof was by 86 points to North Melbourne – when Ben Brown and Nick Larkey combined for 15.1.
Boy, how times have changed.
Here are the Dogs’ goalkicking culprits for the past three weeks:
Jamarra Ugle-Hagan 4.5 (13 shots)
Cody Weightman 4.3 (8 shots)
Aaron Naughton 3.4 (8 shots)
Bailey Williams 3.4 (8 shots)
Bailey Smith 2.3 (6 shots)
Rory Lobb 2.2 (6 shots)
Marcus Bontempelli 1.3 (6 shots)
Arthur Jones 0.3 (4 shots)
Oskar Baker 0.3 (4 shots)
Spearhead Naughton has not kicked multiple goals since round 8 and has been soundly beaten by Charlie Ballard and Sam De Koning in the past fortnight.
THE RORY LOBB DILEMMA
Rory Lobb is 12 games into a four-year contract and you wonder how safe he is in Beveridge’s side.
The narrative that Lobb is being wasted on a wing is misleading. Yes, he lined up on the wing against Ollie Henry at the opening centre bounce on Saturday night.
And Lobb ran further than every other player in the first quarter (4.4km) – but after the opening minutes he appeared to play exclusively as a key forward or ruckman.
By the final siren Lobb had spent just 6 per cent of his minutes on the wing.
That’s arguably even more concerning. Lobb registered just one kick after quarter-time (a behind in the final quarter) while playing in his natural positions.
Fremantle list manager David Walls said at trade time last October: “206cm key forwards who kick two goals a game and can go through the ruck are very hard to find”.
It is still early and the Dogs will be hoping Lobb can find his 2022 form again.
Hours before this match Jordan Croft slotted three goals for Calder Cannons and excited recruiters in Craigieburn.
The athletic 200cm father-son prospect and ex-volleyballer looks a promising prospect who, along with 208cm swingman Sam Darcy, should be in the Dogs’ best 18 of the future.
CURIOUS COMMENT
Chris Scott – who has now coached 15 wins from 17 games against the Dogs – made a curious comment the day before the game.
“If the question is (are) Bontempelli, Smith, Macrae, Liberatore good players? Tick. Their draft position alone reflects that. We really respect them, but can we beat them? Yep,” Scott said.
He was right – Bontempelli was drafted at No.4, Smith at No.7, Macrae at No.6 and Liberatore was a father-son pick.
That’s a credit to the Dogs, who have nailed every top-20 pick since 2009. Their record at the pointy end of the draft is arguably the best in the competition.
But you wonder whether Scott was shining a light on the composition of his team.
From Saturday night these are the players taken by the Cats at pick 40 or later in the national draft – Jake Kolodjashnij, Jed Bews, Gryan Miers and Tom Stewart.
These are the rookies taken by the Cats – Tom Atkins, Jack Henry, Zach Guthrie, Bradley Close, Mark Blicavs.
And then there’s the Irishmen – Mark O’Connor and Oisin Mullin – who have formed an all-Irish half-back line along with Zach Tuohy, who was recruited from Carlton, plus delisted free agent Tyson Stengle.
The workrate of the rookies was unrivalled at Marvel Stadium.
Topping the GPS data was Blicavs (14.1km), Mullin (14km), Miers (13.9km) and Guthrie (13.4km). The only Bulldog in the top five was ex-Cat Ryan Gardner (13.8km), who played on Jeremy Cameron.
Some rival list bosses often quip, perhaps enviously, that Cats list manager Andrew Mackie has the easiest job in footy given the queue of stars who want to play for Geelong.
But there is little doubt they have extraordinarily mined and developed talent under Scott.
Star midfielder Mitch Duncan watched the win at home so he could get an early night before a key training session on Sunday morning as he, Patrick Dangerfield and Max Holmes prepare to return against the Power after the bye.
It’ll be a sweet few days off as Cameron heads to Cairns, De Koning to Phillip Island, Stewart to Byron Bay, Henry to an AirBnB on the coast outside of Geelong and Blicavs to assistant coach Nigel Lappin’s place on the Apple Isle.
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