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The Western Bulldogs have come away the winner in their first JLT Community Series match, defeating Hawthorn by 22 points.
» Click here to read the full match report
Final score
Western Bulldogs 15.10 (100)
Hawthorn 11.12 (78)
Saturday afternoon football heads to Ballarat, as two (semi)-recent premiers in Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs take part in their first tastes of JLT footy in 2018. Join us on The Roar for live scores and a blog, starting from 2:10pm (AEDT).
After winning a miracle premiership in 2016, the Bulldogs fell away badly last year; they won four of their first five games, they went 7-10 in their final 17 to plummet to a tenth place finish. We’ve been left wondering, was it just a post-premiership hangover, or the beginning of a prolonged fall out of finals contention?
Hawthorn, too, fell from finals to the lower ranks of the ladder last year. Defeated by today’s opponents in the 2016 finals series, their dynasty was over. Beginning an uncharacteristic rebuild last year, the Hawks fell to twelfth; not the apocalyptic result some were expecting, but not the best.
This isn’t a make-or-break year for either team, but they’d be both wanting to prove something: the Bulldogs desiring to prove 2017 was an aberration and they are more than fit to regularly feature in finals, and Hawthorn to showcase rebuilds don’t have to be long and arduous.
Both teams will field relatively strong line-ups in Ballarat today, with the Hawks including big names Ryan Burton, Jaeger O’Meara, Tom Mitchell, Shaun Burgoyne and Jarryd Roughead. They’ll also have recruit Jarman Impey debuting for the club, while two draftees in Oliver Hanrahan and David Mirra will take to the field in the prestigious brown and gold.
The Bulldogs are perhaps being a little more daring with their team, debuting three of their recruits in Jackson Trengove, Hayden Crozier and Josh Schache, while promising draftee Aaron Naughton is also in the team. Their biggest names – Easton Wood, Marcus Bontempelli and Jason Johanissen – are all in the team, but Tom Boyd isn’t.
Prediction
Both sides have named strong teams, and both would be determined to get the win – even if it’s ultimately just a pre-season game. With Hawthorn having perhaps the more settled, experienced team – as opposed to the experienced yet full of new faces side of their opponents – I’ll pencil them in for a narrow win.
Hawthorn by 11
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