After three rounds, the Western Bulldogs sit undefeated, well ahead of most pundit’s expectations. So are the Bulldogs better than expected?

The Bulldogs three wins for the year are most definitely two more than would have been thought.

The last gasp win against the Crows (well, really a last gasp let-off given Bock could have won the game for Adelaide with a straight kick for goal) was a very good win, but it was unclear if this was due to genuine improvement or based more on the emotion of Brad Johnson’s 300th game.

Similarly, the win over Melbourne in Round Two wasn’t a great guide either. Granted, any 100 point win is a decent win. But eight days ago, Melbourne were as bad as any team have been for some time. So it’s hard to draw any line from these two wins.

Friday night, however, was a different story.

The game appeared to be going to prediction early on, with the Saints rampant and running out to a six goal lead by quarter time. Game over, right? No.

Out come the Dogs with eighteen goals to six over the next three quarters to blow away a team thought to be one of the three genuine contenders for the flag this year.

This was a quality win and points to the fact that this might be a much better team than first thought.

Importantly for the Dogs, the result was genuinely influenced by the players who will be the future for the team: Cooney, Griffen, Cross and the revelation Hill were super through the midfield and pushing forward.

Murphy and Hahn were also great up forward, and given both these guys also have at least three or four years left at the top level, there are some reasons to be enthusiastic about the future.

At the start of the year, this was the big question about the Bulldogs: could the 20 to 25 year-olds step up and become very good players. So far, they are showing all the right signs.

Finally, Rodney Eade has done two things over the off-season that have had a big influence on his team’s performance.

He has tweaked the game plan to have a heavier emphasis on kicking rather than handballs, resulting in even faster movement of the ball into the forward line (on Friday night, for instance, they had 243 kicks to 152 handballs).

This suits his hard-leading, but small forwards as they are more able to mark on the lead thanks to the open space rather than need to attempt to take contested pack marks.

He also recruited Hudson and Welsh from Adelaide, a gamble that at this stage is paying off. Both have made a tangible positive impact over the first three rounds.

With their next two games against Essendon and Richmond, the Dogs could easily by 5-0 or 4-1 after five rounds and flying.

However, reality may then kick in.

The next nine games are all against good to very good teams, including trips to Sydney, Subiaco, Tassie and Darwin.

The Dogs may not win more than three of these. So after fourteen rounds, they are more likely to be about 7-7.

This would still put them thereabouts of the eight, with a shot at playing finals, which is still much better than what most would have thought four weeks ago.

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