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Sport Nation
Why the Dogs should be weary of tonight's St Kilda challenge
Jaiden Sciberras • June 12th, 2025 5:34 pm
The Bulldogs will be eyeing off an important return to form in tonight’s contest with the Saints.
Coming off back-to-back losses, the Bulldogs find themselves on the outskirts of the top eight, managing just six wins on the season following an injury-riddled opening run and a late falter.
After a spirited loss to the Cats in Round 11 and the bye in Round 12, the Dogs fell well short against a struggling Hawthorn outfit, scoring a season-low 59 points in a rather disappointing performance at Marvel Stadium.
“It’s the first time they’ve lowered their colours,” Buckley told SEN Whateley.
“In terms of performance, they’d lost five games before that, but I think they’d lost them positively.
“They’d lost them admirably, but this one was their worst performance for the year for my mind.
“They weren’t as clean. The area of their game that they’re normally the strongest in, which is from the inside to the out, was where they were bested by Hawthorn.
“They were fumbly, they couldn’t handle the pressure which normally is the part of their game that is strongest, to be able to flick the ball around and make it difficult to pressure them.
“But you need to be clean to be able to do that, and you need to be hard, and they weren’t the hardest, cleanest side of the evening.
“There's a little bit of soul searching out of the bye to have come out like that, and once again the coaching challenge is, ‘How do you handle that with your players?’.
“It’s alright when things have got momentum and when things are tracking up, when there’s lower expectations and you’re exceeding them, but when all of a sudden you haven’t performed, how does Luke Beveridge handle this with his group.”
Despite having comfortably dealt with the Saints in Round 6, tonight’s fixture has the potential to play out rather uncomfortably if Ross Lyon’s men can get their set up right.
“(Beveridge) wants to get them back on track real quick,” Buckley continued.
“The Saints have a habit of being a challenge, finding your weak points and squeezing.
“They are going to need to be weary this week.”
Having re-signing coach Beveridge to a two-year extension mid-week, alongside the return of star key forward Sam Darcy, the Bulldogs will look to take care of the Saints to set up a September charge.
