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Of all the imponderables thrown up by this crazy game of ours, surely the most difficult to quantify is heart.
When teams play badly, we say they didn’t show enough of it. When they grind out a win against the odds against a superior team, they’ve invariably shown plenty of it. It’s what braying fans and media talking heads shriek at the defeated as they trudge off after a loss, or thump their chest in aid of repeatedly after a victory.
The Western Bulldogs outfit that found a way to knock over a wildly inefficient Brisbane had few improvements over the wayward team that got thumped in their first two outings this season. The ball use was still patchy at best, the forward structure nonexistent, the inside 50s haphazard.
But the effort in every play, the desperation to chase and tackle, the willingness to get hands dirty at the contest and spread away with pace, that couldn’t have been more stark. And against a Lions outfit far more gifted in just about every way except for that major intangible, it was enough.
The Dogs dragged the Lions down to their level, scrapped and fought and grit their teeth through every challenge and every test, and willed themselves to victory. If nothing else, it proved Luke Beveridge still has the players after a week of questioning their desire.
It’s funny, too, how out of the darkest of times can come light. Five nights before – funny number, five – Jamarra Ugle-Hagan had the toughest night of his career, the target of vile racial abuse that our game, to its great shame, still is yet to stamp out.
The defiant point at his skin after slotting the first goal of the evening couldn’t have been more fitting a start, and will surely instantly become part of footy’s folklore, never mind the ugliness of the rest of the evening’s play.
Jamarra Ugle-Hagan of the Western Bulldogs points to his skin as he celebrates kicking a goal. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
But just as gladdening was the outpouring of support shown by 17 of the 18 Bulldogs on the field (Liam Jones was too far away to make it down), as Ugle-Hagan was mobbed en masse by teammates in the most public display of unity and camaraderie one could ask for.
There were similar scenes as he kicked his fifth goal after the siren, an appropriate bookmark for an evening that will always be ‘the Jamarra Game’.
The statement was set already, just minutes in, by both Ugle-Hagan and the Bulldogs: after a week of torment undeserved for the former and thoroughly justified for the latter, now was the time for revenge.
Ugle-Hagan was by far the biggest beneficiary of the Dogs’ newfound dare with ball in hand. It came unstuck more often than not – this isn’t an exceptional kicking team by any stretch of the imagination – but when it worked, it created opportunities for the forwards so conspicuously lacking against St Kilda in particular.
A passage of play in the second quarter, which began in defensive 50 with Alex Keath, was the Dogs’ best play of the season by so far it isn’t funny. A short kick found a hard-running Jack Macrae, who had found just enough space ahead of Neale to be an option. Another short pass found Bontempelli – last week, the Saints had continually denied the Dogs that option or cut it off for a quick turnover with their unrelenting pressure.
Bontempelli moved it quickly on to find an unmarked Bailey Dale, who turned and gave to the running Jason Johannisen – Dogs fans every rejoiced at the return of overlap run, missing in action since some point against Melbourne in Round 1. Then, instead of following every Dogs inside 50 to start the year – that of course is cross your fingers, sink boot into leather and whack it in there for Harris Andrews to intercept – Johannisen lowered his eyes and beautifully picked out a leading Aaron Naughton. It was textbook football.
Naughton sprayed the shot out of bounds on the full, but at least he was getting chances like this. Ugle-Hagan got a similar amount of space, and every Dogs fan knows which of the two is the superior kick for goal.
There are always two sides to every story, and it’s true that as much as the Dogs improved their ball movement in intent at least (execution is still a bit of a work in progress), the Lions permitted it. But more on Brisbane later.
Without the ball, the Dogs’ defensive structure looked as solid as it has in years. The Saints looked likely to score every time they put the ball in a dangerous area; for Brisbane tonight, without a mark on the lead from Jack Gunston specifically, they seemed lost for ideas as to how to score.
The defensive structure had the same issues as ever – Josh Bruce is not a backman, Ed Richards got too loose on Charlie Cameron at crucial stages, and Bailey Dale seems to have traded his right foot for some magic beans sometime over the summer – but this week, they had help.
Rarely in recent times have the Bulldogs’ midfielders swarmed back in such numbers to block up space, to shark spilled high balls, and to work the ball via hand to safety rather than just bombing it back to Lions defenders set up for the outnumber.
Rarely in recent times have the Bulldogs so effectively clogged up the corridor, denying the Lions marking options inboard and forcing them to switch repeatedly, or hit high hopeful bombs down the line that the Dogs back themselves to win or neutralise every time.
The former is encapsulated by the fact the Lions had just 49 disposals in the centre square all evening; last week, the Saints had 74. The latter is evidenced by keeping the Lions, blessed with, on paper, the most dynamic forward line in the game, to a mere seven goals.
Jack Macrae was back to his best in this regard, helped immensely by Bailey Smith’s most impactful game in quite a while, disposal counts be damned. But no midfielder did more than Marcus Bontempelli.
I’ve already seen critics point to the 13 clangers he committed and suggest his game was overrated; I can only assume they were only watching the game disinterestedly if at all. (Hard to blame them, Thursday night still sucks for casual viewers, even with a 7:20 start time.) This was a captain’s game from a player who has fought a lone hand in the first two rounds, and finally had some teammates to join him in combat.
Six of those clangers, it has to be pointed out, came from free kicks against, one of which was a courageous effort running back with the flight to come within milliseconds of neutralising a contest inside attacking 50. Not one of those frees against cost the Dogs in any meaningful way, unlike some (laughs in Riley Garcia).
Then, with or without footy in hand, his attack on every contest was awe-inspiring. His core strength to ride a tackle and dish out a clearing handpass to an unmarked teammate, or burst away from a stoppage with power as much as speed for one of his seven clearances, are traits few others in the game possess.
It has been a solid 18 months since Christian Petracca ended the tussle between the two for the role of the game’s top player, and since then he’s probably lost the crown to Jeremy Cameron. Keep playing like he did tonight, and Bontempelli is every chance of ending the year as the top seed, whether the Bulldogs make finals or not.
For the Lions, Lachie Neale was outrageously good at the source – there’s surely not a better handballer in the game. Time and time again he funnelled out a clearing pass to a free teammate, riding a tackle or two along the way but never panicking, and few if any of his touches were wasted.
But Bontempelli was a clear best on ground for me; for one thing, Neale’s hard work was often let down by the Lions’ wastefulness going inside 50. Regularly he’d do sensationally to get the ball to a teammate in space, who’d then proceed to do nothing useful with it.
Bontempelli didn’t need a teammate to finish his job – he wasn’t just the one winning the clearance, he was the one driving the ball inside 50. He had seven on the night, equal second-most on the ground behind Oskar Baker. Neale, as good as he was, had just three of his own, even if his eight score involvements trumped everyone else on the ground.
Eight intercept possessions tells of how hard he worked defensively to neutralise contested and help out his backs, or buttered up after a rare mistake to get his huge frame in the way of a Brisbane rebound.
Stuff the 13 clangers, he lifted the Dogs up onto his back and carried them to victory. If anything, a performance as lionhearted as Bontempelli’s but rife with skill errors couldn’t be a better encapsulation of the team’s evening.
The story tonight is, obviously, the triumph over Ugle-Hagan: from a footy perspective at least, though, the big talking point must be Brisbane.
I’m debating how strong to be in this assessment – in the car on the way home from Marvel I seriously considered giving pathetic a run – but the Lions’ best players still gave it a hell of a run and deserve plenty of praise.
I touched on Neale before, but Jack Gunston proved beyond all doubt he’s still an A-grade key forward target and the most reliable set shot in the game.
Josh Dunkley was tremendous against his old side both in close and as a quality aerial target, Harris Andrews mopped up everything behind the ball, and Brandon Starcevich swept up whatever Andrews couldn’t get to.
But no side this stacked for talent in attack should be managing seven goals against the most paper-thin defence in the AFL. 48 inside 50s should be enough to kick a winning score on the Dogs, no matter how much effort they put in. A serious side wins the game with those numbers.
The Lions have problems. Big ones. Yes, they wasted chances in front of goal, but so too did the Dogs – Naughton, for instance, sprayed two out of the full in a matter of minutes in the second term. It’s not simply a case of fixing up the accuracy to turn the perennial pretenders into a legitimate contender.
Hugh McCluggage looks not even a shadow of his former self, just a wisp of vapour on the ground incapable of speeding away from a stoppage or finding a target like the would-be superstar of old.
Daniel Rich’s cool head and beautiful kicking skills across half-back weren’t replicated by Keidean Coleman, who had a crack at showing he’s the heir apparent down there as the sole man and was pretty poor. His panic under pressure deep in defence after a kick to him was adjudged to not have travelled 15 metres, handballing straight into a group of Dogs for Rory Lobb to snap a simple goal, was particularly ghastly.
Some problems persist: Joe Daniher still can’t kick for goal or resist the lure of going for them, leaving scorch marks on Charlie Cameron with one crucial barbecue in the last quarter. Darragh Joyce isn’t the answer in defence, and while Darcy Gardiner will be back soon and everyone is hoping Marcus Adams will also play AFL again as he battles concussion, the Lions probably need to back Andrews and Jack Payne in alone against the Magpies next week, because their ball skills and nimble targets will eat the former Saint alive on Good Friday Eve.
Cam Rayner is being wasted across half-back, and his explosiveness was exactly what the Lions could have used around the ball when they were getting clobbered. Zac Bailey is surely the most frustrating player in the AFL, because for a player who pushed All-Australian selection last year, kicks goals and looks brilliant when in full flight, he’s probably the biggest downhill skiier in a team that might as well have that moniker on the coat of arms.
The Lions don’t seem able to use the run and gun of Conor McKenna anywhere near as well as they should – I lost count of the times they handpassed to him on the run, only to find him boxed in with no other option than to quickly chuck it on his boot. Yes, the Dogs set up well to deny him that space, particularly through the middle, but for McKenna to not have a single running bounce for his 502 metres gained tells you where a lot of that territory came from – and it wasn’t run and carry.
A lot of the above rests with Chris Fagan, because the Lions are quite substantially less than the sum of their parts at the moment. When they dominate around the ball, like they did against Melbourne, they’re unstoppable. But we saw in the last ten minutes of that win, and then again on Thursday night, that when the going gets tough, it’s left to far too few to carry them home.
There never seems to be a Plan B with the Lions, either: Bailey rarely gets unleashed on the ball for longer than the odd centre bounce to try and inject some pace into a group that somehow got outrun by the Dogs from clearances. The way he was marking the ball, it surely would have been worth sending Harris Andrews forward for the final quarter and doing something with the ineffectual Eric Hipwood.
There’s just no ingenuity with Fagan’s coaching – nearly always with the Lions, you can tell by the 25-minute mark of the first quarter whether they’ve got a game on their terms or whether they’re in deep trouble. And I’d love to know about the chain of events that led to Will Ashcroft, in his third game, being forced to defend one-on-one against his direct opponent Bailey Williams in the goalsquare at the game’s flashpoint.
A team as talented as the Lions shouldn’t be dishing up performances like Thursday night’s five years into a stint near the top of the ladder, a team for whom two of their best four players for the evening (Gunston and Dunkley) arrived in last year’s trade period. They shouldn’t be giving a player like Baker the space they provided him off a wing, giving a guy who looked thoroughly outclassed in the first two rounds seven marks, 611 metres gained, a game-high eight inside 50s and hopefully a Brownlow vote.
Luke Beveridge is no master tactician by any means, but he’s proved time and again in times of crisis to be able to galvanise his troops to fight through their own mediocrity, drag a game into a scrap and come out victorious the other side.
In 2020, after the Dogs got humiliated in the first two rounds of the COVID year, they came out and had a brawl-fest with the Giants that they ended up getting the better of on the scoreboard in a tense, scrappy tussle. Just last year, they dragged Sydney down to their own sloppy play and then beat them with experience… though they made it hard work for themselves.
If nothing else – and if I’m honest, you can’t really take much else from a game of this quality – Beveridge proved he still has his most defining trait as Bulldogs coach: not any masterful understanding of the game or shrewd game-winning tactic, but his ability to make his team believe.
The result was a game played right in the Dogs’ wheelhouse at the moment: when faced with more highly skilled and dangerous sides, they lock down on clearances, harrass the ball-carrier, force long high balls, and kick just enough goals to scrape a win despite making it way too hard for themselves. In short, they play with ticker to spare.
One team, fuelled by a week’s worth of criticism and disgusting racial abuse, came prepared to put their hearts on their sleeve. The other, it seems, left theirs at the Gabba.
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