Sick Puppies: What's Going On With The Bulldogs AFLW Team?

No team has suffered more from disruptions this AFLW season than the Western Bulldogs.

With a mid-week game to usher in the second month of the year against the powerful Dockers, there won’t be any sense of normality for the women in red, white and blue in 2022.

While most other teams are a month into their seasons, the Dogs have played just two games at time of writing and with such a gap between their matches, it can be hard to truly know what to expect of the team this season.

Indeed, improvement was anticipated and excitement was brewing over an encouraging list with plenty of young talent.

Certainly, it seemed like last year’s five-win season would be the minimum aim for a talented group.

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Perhaps it’s harsh to suggest that one injury is the cause behind the optimism fading and the reality of a season of struggles setting in, but Izzy Huntington’s ACL tear in Round 1 may well have been the fatal blow.

The 22-year-old is the sort of magical player that transcends coaching and game plan limitations, of which the Bulldogs have suffered in recent times.

She was an All-Australian intercepting defender in 2020, averaging 13 disposals and 4.8 marks a game, before finally getting a good run at her natural position as a key forward in 2021, kicking 12.9 in 9 games.

Last season, the Bulldogs averaged the lowest disposals in the entire competition, yet averaged the second-most marks per game and were efficient in using those marks to create scoring opportunities – Huntington averaged the most marks per game of any Bulldog and averaged 2.3 contested marks a game, more than double any of her teammates.

So, when the 2020 Rising Star suffered yet another serious leg injury, the Bulldogs not only sustained a devastating blow to their offensive unit, but rather, they lost a generational, “throw the team on your back” talent that just wins games for their teams.

There’s the caveat that, with games in hand, success is salvageable for the Bulldogs, but there are such heavy concerns on the lack of identity as a playing group, as well as the general physical and mental malaise that understandably comes with a disrupted season in the middle of a global pandemic, that it’s time we shifted expectations.

No one can possibly doubt the effort that this, and every other playing group in the competition, puts forward on a weekly basis in conditions that aren’t overly suited to football.

Round 1, they lost to a Premiership contender comfortably having lost their best player.

Their next game was nearly three weeks later, in which extreme inaccuracy cost the team any chance of being successful, while much of the playing group struggled to run out the full game.

The Bulldogs were also forced to fly home in the early hours of Sunday morning and expected to back up two days later against the Dockers.

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These unprecedented, 2022 struggles have already put this group on the back foot, a further disadvantage that wasn’t necessary.

The Bulldogs are averaging nearly identical disposal numbers, but the kick-to-handball ratio has decreased in the small sample size from 1.89:1 to 1.41:1, the marking numbers have decreased by around 27% and the inaccuracy has resulted in a big drop-off in scoring.

Quite positively, the Bulldogs’ tackling number have gone up marginally and is an indicator of the preference to keep the ball and opposition in tight while the group’s fitness base increases.

The midfield is the most stable aspect of the Bulldogs’ team with the reliability of veterans matched by aspiring youthfulness of rotational players.

Ellie Blackburn continues to be the best midfielder on the team with her two-way, all-round impact well felt across the ground, while Kirsty Lamb has started the season off as consistently as ever.

Pick 2 of the 2020 draft, Jessica Fitzgerald, was a beneficiary of more time in the clinches against GWS in Round 4, finishing with 11 disposals and 10 tackles, notching up career-highs for contested possessions and tackles.

Isabelle Pritchard was another encouraging performer in the same game between the arcs, finishing with a career-high 240 metres gained as a tall wing.

And while it ended up being a 21-point loss to the Giants, Richelle Cranston finished with 14 disposals, 3 clearances and a goal to suggest a role with responsibility will suit her going forward.

Ultimately, that’s what 2022 will need to be for the Bulldogs.

This isn’t a throwaway season at all and it has the potential to improve drastically for the club, but finding the players who will thrive under the most pressure and creating a group whose work ethic goes unmatched would be a step in the right direction.

Successfully reaching checkpoints in positive progression may well be the injection this team needs.

Not since the success of 2018 have the Dogs been a strong defensive team, which falls on the defenders, but also the defensive running of the midfielders.

There are adequate rebounding weapons to assist with the low-possession, slingshot style of play that is preferred at the Bulldogs – Naomi Ferres and Eleanor Brown look to be more prolific as ever, while Brooke Lochland 7-goal hauls are behind her as the team’s premier yardage player going forward.

But the tackling numbers simply have to be meaningful, so that extremely talented, yet still raw trio of Brown, Isabella Grant and Katie Lynch aren’t caught out by the powerful forwards of the competition.

Incremental growth has to be the aim of the game, as well as coaching stability.

Bonnie Toogood needs support in attack that simply isn’t around her, with multiple rucks and quiet small forwards around her.

For too long, the Bulldogs haven’t known what to do with flexible players and have restricted their own ability to influence games through positional changes.

It set Huntington back in her quest to be the best key forward in AFLW history to this point of her career and could do the same for others.

Perhaps letting Grant play as a key forward target and giving Sarah Hartwig more freedom in defence as an interceptor is a viable solution to tightening things up at either end of the ground.

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Absolutely, it has been a tough start to the season in many ways for the Bulldogs, with injuries and COVID wreaking havoc on the group.

With a difficult fixture facing the club to go along with that, there is no shame in re-evaluating season goals and creating new targets to aim for in 2022.

Without a semblance of normalcy, expecting great success from a playing group is akin to finding strong footing in quicksand.

The Bulldogs have already faced a season’s worth of struggles in just the first month of the season but with an open-mind and a fresh outlook, they can still offer plenty for fans and internal stakeholders alike.

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