Cricket
Racing
Rugby
League
Motorsport
Football
Golf
Combat Sports
Basketball
Tennis
Other Sports
Sport Nation
Find your frequency hereThe main reason for the down Dogs and why we shouldn’t jump off yet
Louis Van Dam • June 6th, 2025 4:25 pm
The Western Bulldogs have now lost two games in a row and three of their last four after going down to Hawthorn by 22 points on Thursday night.
The Bulldogs enjoyed a purple patch of form recently when they won three on the bounce while scoring well over 100 points in each of those three wins.
After a hard-fought 10-point defeat to the Suns on the Gold Coast, they demolished Essendon by 91 points, but have since lost their past two to Geelong and the Hawks.
“These losses against goods sides are piling up,” Kane Cornes said on SEN’s Fireball.
So far this year, the Bulldogs have lost to six teams currently in the top eight - Collingwood, Fremantle, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Geelong, Hawthorn - and have only beaten one - GWS.
David King believes one of the most significant factors in the Bulldogs' struggles is the depth of their playing list.
“I think the bottom six at the Dogs cost more cough-up goals than any other bottom six in the comp and you can’t help but see it,” said King.
“You can go through the names, like Ryan Gardner got taken to the cleaners last night, strange selection in the first place, comes in and just looks out of sorts.
“(Lachie) McNeil, he can have a game where he can kick three goals and be quite influential, but then he can have games like last night where he switches that ball at a crucial stage, hangs it up in the air, Chol strolls into goal.
“They’ve got five or six guys in the team that really are just AFL players, but barely AFL level players.
“Every team has a bottom six, that's logical, but they don't cost them as much as what the Dogs seem to. And it's every week.
“They rely on that next level of player. Who’s going to step up? Who can help?
“Who does? No one.”
Cornes was critical of the Dogs for underperforming despite having a stronger team on paper than the Hawks.
“I just think the top end and the strength of their list is that good that it shouldn’t matter,” he said.
“Line up those midfields last night - there’s no way the Bulldogs don’t get that job done. They’re number one in every area.
“I keep hearing the Bulldogs have had injuries. Well, Sam Darcy, yes, but not last night. Hawthorn could have easily had that excuse. No (James) Sicily, no (Nick) Watson, no (Will) Day.”
Despite that, Cornes believes they have enough talent to go on a winning run now that the fixture opens up for them.
The Bulldogs' favourable run includes the likes of St Kilda, Richmond, Sydney and North Melbourne in the next month.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, the Western Bulldogs are going to get on a run,” said Cornes.
“They play nine of twelve at Marvel, it is a great fixture free kick they’ve got, and they will play against some poor sides.
“They will smash St Kilda next week. They will beat Richmond and then Sydney.”
Cornes’ main concern for the Bulldogs is surrounding head coach Luke Beveridge and his shuffling of the lineup.
“Why does this happen every year where a coach refuses to settle the lineup, play his best team, start the year slowly, until he realises halfway through the year that he's go to settle this team,” Cornes continued.
“Would you suggest that he’s mucking around with the team again which is to the detriment of it. And then he will realise and say I’m going to play my best unit, we’ll get on a roll and we’ll probably finish fifth or sixth and put ourselves in a difficult position once again because we haven’t qualified for top four where we should be.
“Further to that, why would you sign him (Beveridge) now? What is the benefit to signing him now and not when you’ve got just a fraction more evidence?
“I've been pretty consistent, there's no rush and need to sign him yet."
King feels Beveridge has done a decent job and suggested it would be careless to discount them right now.
“I think prior to last night, there’s grounds to sign him, I mean he’s done a pretty good job,” King contended.
“I don’t think you jump after one game like that, it was far from a disastrous performance.
“I think they’ve been evolving, I think there's been a changing of the guard, but they’ve been a little bit hamstrung by injury.
“When Darcy gets back, I can see them getting on a run, I really can and being a threat in a finals series,” King added.
Cornes concluded: “Yeah, but it's probably going to be, you would think, from outside the top four just because once again they've left themselves with so much work to do.
“Let’s see you knock off some good teams before we lock in for another three years for a coach that’s been there for 13 and has underachieved significantly in the last four years.”
Listen to the Dogs v Hawks review below:
