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The Western Bulldogs have slumped to a second uncompetitive performance in a row while the West Coast Eagles picked up their first win of the season, victorious by 51 points.
Final score
Western Bulldogs: 9.16 (70)
West Coast: 18.13 (121)
Sunday’s early game takes us to Melbourne, as an under-fire Western Bulldogs outfit host the West Coast Eagles at Ethiad Stadium. Join The Roar for live scores and a blog of the match, starting from 3:20pm AEDT.
The respective Round 1 matches for this duo were same, same but different. Same, as in the fact that they lost, but different in the manner of those losses.
The Eagles hosted the inaugural men’s football match at Optus Stadium, playing against the Swans. The Eagles held their own for much of the match, without Josh Kennedy in the side, but couldn’t hold out the Buddy Franklin-led Swans for long enough, going down by 29 points.
The Bulldogs, in their Sunday game, were awful, losing to the Giants by 82 points in a diabolically bad performance. So, the onus really is on the hosts today to redeem themselves, but they’ll face a mighty challenge against the Eagles.
Kennedy’s still not back for the Eagles, frustratingly, but it’ll be the second game back for Nic Natanui, who’ll be against Jordan Roughead in the ruck. The Eagles have made just one change for today’s match, with Willie Rioli joining the team in the place of Will Schofield.
The Bulldogs, for their part, have lost two players to injury while dropping two others. Hayden Crozier and Tom Liberatore are out with knee injuries – the latter a season-ending ACL ailment – while Fletcher Roberts and Shane Biggs have been omitted.
Caleb Daniel, Lukas Webb and Lin Jong are in for their first matches of 2018, while Ed Richards will debut.
Prediction
It’s difficult to predict a winner for this one. The Bulldogs are being backed by some to bounce back, while others are concerned about the Eagles’ Melbourne fortunes.
I’m going to back the West Aussies, but I do believe the Bulldogs will put in a much stronger performance than last weekend’s.
West Coast Eagles by 16 points
Join The Roar for live scores and a blog of the match, starting from 3:20pm AEDT.
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