‘We are challenging everyone’: Bulldogs’ big statement after week of intense pressure

Questions around the Western Bulldogs’ consistency will linger, admitted coach Luke Beveridge after his team provided a brilliant retort to critics with a 10-goal win over a tired St Kilda at Marvel Stadium.

The emphatic victory was set up when the accurate Bulldogs kicked 12 goals to St Kilda’s three in the first half after the club was, in Beveridge’s words, “on the canvas a little bit” after Essendon’s shock win over them a week earlier.

Tim English of the Bulldogs celebrates after scoring a goal during the round six AFL match between against the St Kilda Saints.

It was the Saints’ worst performance under Ross 2.0, but the coach said three games in 11 days had caught up with them, and he was prepared to accept the performance was an aberration rather than representative of where they were at as a team.

The Western Bulldogs now head to Western Australia to play Fremantle with hope they can back up the win as the coach continues to shake up the organisation in an attempt to re-establish the team at the top of the ladder.

“We put pressure on ourselves because we expect a lot, and we understand that externally there is an expectation of us and that is OK,” Beveridge said. “We think there is a lot of promise in our team.

“If the question marks come over consistency, that is just a fact at the moment.”

Aaron Naughton kicked accurately and flew for his marks.

As he bleeds new faces into the team, pressure for spots has increased on established stars such as Jack Macrae, Bailey Dale and Caleb Daniel. Dale and Macrae were excellent performers in the victory. Dale had a career best 40 possessions in what was “a crazy game for a high defender” according to Beveridge.

The coach is making no apologies for making these players work hard to retain their positions in the team despite the excellent service they have provided over many years.

Influential: Bailey Dale responded with a best on ground performance after being the sub a week earlier.

“We are challenging everyone to take their games to new levels and … not reinvent themselves, for me history doesn’t matter. It’s now and what you can be tomorrow,” Beveridge said.

That attitude has been difficult to accept, Dale admitted, but once he processed what was needed to rediscover his form he went about putting it into practice.

“When you find yourself out of the side, you are probably just thinking: what is going on?” Dale said.

He said it was a positive when there was competition for spots, but different approaches were needed to cajole a player back to their best. “Some people like [a circuit breaker], some people don’t, but he’s the coach, so he makes the decision,” Dale said.

“I knew I just had to get out there and try to play my best footy and free my mind up and stick to what I know that I was good at.”

It’s the paradox that a player motivated to prove everyone wrong faces when they perform well after being dropped or made to feel vulnerable. They suddenly prove everyone right, or at least the method used as right.

Beveridge said he knew the group would stick together and support each other regardless of their position in the team and said that, although consistency might be hard to find for a time, as new players adjusted to their roles they had an opportunity to reinforce their method next week.

“We haven’t always bounced out of healthy wins, so it is part of our growth and maturity as a team to bounce out of a pretty impressive win to give a good account of ourselves in Perth next week,” Beveridge said.

For Lyon’s part he said it was the Saints’ only abject failure to perform since he returned to the club.

“There was no angst after the game, but we have got to prove it was an aberration,” Lyon said.

“There were a lot of mitigating circumstances that really challenge us. We’ll look to respond.

“If anyone can say that is typical of us, I will defy them strongly.”

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