Bulldogs Round 1 summary

[Doggoneit]

WOW what an inspiring performance. I gave us a sneaky chance but never expected an 11 goal win.

Firstly the key was the relentless pressure we applied from the start to the finish. We stopped the Lions from playing their game. The pressure we applied in our forward 50 was outstanding and didn't allow the lions to run it out of their backline. Tory Dickson was excellent with 8 tackles.

We also stopped the Lions from breaking through the centre corridor and forced them to play down the line. This allowed us to create contests and ultimately turnovers.

The key match up was Nick Lower on Daniel Rich. Rich is probably the Lions most damaging player and Lower kept him to just 8 possessions. From a team perspective Lower was one of our best on the ground as he allowed the rest of our midfield to run riot.

Minson had the better of the ruck duel - the hit outs were almost evenly shared but Minson was damaging around the ground with several clearances and some contested marks. Our mids were able to feed off this and led the clearances for most of the game.

Its hard to single players out with such an even contribution but some of note were
Brett Goodes - looked like a seasoned campaigner - stopped his man and set up many attacks - 24 pos, 7 marks, 87% D/E
Tom Liberatore - seemed to be everywhere - 28 pos, 5 marks, 9 tackles, 11 clearances
Ayce Cordy - arguably his best game yet, he created contests took 2 marks and kicked 2 goals - should have taken 2 more within easy kicking range.
Adam Cooney - still not at his best but has 21 pos, 8 marks, 3 tackles and gave us run from half back and across the middle.
Liam Picken - played a new role in the back pocket, 18 pos and 10 marks - I never though I would see the day when he was the last name in the tackle count - yes only laid 1 tackle for the game.
Jordan Roughead - kept Brown to 1 goal, looked composed and took 7 marks - he will just keep getting better.
Liam Jones - while he didnt have much impact on the scoreboard - 1 goal - he took Merrett out of the contests allowing our small forwards to be damaging - he will have better games but played his role.
Dale Morris - was solid in his first game back - was beaten a couple of times but gave our defense some composure and experience - will be better for the run.

The big positive is that we can still improve
1 - Goodes, Lower, Stevens and Young played their first games for us and will continue to improve
2 - Boyd, West and Williams are still on the sidelines and are all in our best 22
3 - Johannissen will grow in confidence and just get better as the season progresses ( I really like this kid)
4 - Morris will be better for the run.
5 - Roughead will continue to evolve into one of the best key defenders in the game
6 - Cooney is still not back to his best
7 - Our forwards while doing a great job can still improve their cohesion and become more lethal.

Next week we have Freemantle and it is likely they will bring us back down to earth - I give them a very good chance of making the top 4 this year. but if we continue to play like we did then it certainly wont be the 100 point thrashing they gave our youngsters in the NAB.
Stevens may miss the next game due to some injury niggles - get his body right first before throwing him to the wolves again.
Wood will hopefully be ready to step back in.
Hopefully Dalhaus comes up ok after copping a big hit from Merrett.

Onwards and Upwards