WESTERN BULLDOGS 7.1 Â 9.7 Â 10.11 Â 15.13 (103)
FREMANTLE 0.2 Â 1.5 Â 4.7 Â 5.8 (38)
Goals: Western Bulldogs: J Stringer 5 C Daniel J Dunkley J Johannissen J Macrae J Roughead M Bontempelli M Suckling T Boyd T Liberatore T McLean. Fremantle: L Weller M Pavlich M Taberner M Walters N Suban.
Umpires: Shaun Ryan, Simon Meredith, Robert O'Gorman.
Official Crowd: 27,832 at Etihad Stadium.
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Bulldogs off the leash against Dockers
The Western Bulldogs have upset Fremantle by 65 points at Etihad Stadium.
There were many indicators of the Western Bulldogs' sharing of the load on Sunday in dominating a hardened and mature opponent. None better illustrated a true team effort than their approach to the reigning Brownlow medallist.
Nat Fyfe had just 15 possessions for the afternoon, five less than his 2015 low and barely one apiece for the dozen opponents who spent time on the game's most explosive player. Champion Data recorded first-gamer Marcus Adams having him for longer than anyone – just 14 of Fyfe's 97 minutes on the ground.Â
Otherwise Adams busied himself keeping Matthew Pavlich to six touches and a solitary goal as he and Josh Dunkley enjoyed debuts to remember. Elsewhere in the back half, the Dogs' fire-starters did as they pleased, with Jason Johannisen, Shane Biggs and Bob Murphy racking up 101 possessions between them.
Beveridge noted that his team isn't usually so gluttonous – the Bulldogs had 158 more possessions than the Dockers – and the stark difference in the work Jake Stringer and mates did to hold the ball in their forward line, relative to how easily it came out of Fremantle's, was the biggest pointer to the result.
It also coughed up a remarkable statistic. The Dockers had just 25 possessions – 16 kicks and nine handballs – inside their forward 50 to show for their 31 entries. The Dogs went forward 57 times and had 76 disposals inside the arc.
"Once we got it forward the boys were up for the contest, then when they did transition down the ground, the boys down back they love fighting for each other, they'll come across and help out," former Hawk Matt Suckling said. "They'd do anything to save a goal."
Suckling confessed to having ogled the Bulldogs from afar last season and been taken by their "sexy" football – "the way the boys like to move the ball and apply pressure, it's pretty special". At Etihad they send temperatures up for fun, and Sunday highlighted that the venue of their first seven games of 2016 is a home they find as comfortable as an old armchair.
A Marcus Bontempelli goal after just 16 seconds put down a marker, and while they suffered from some wayward work in front of goal – 8.12 and four out of bounds after quarter-time – Beveridge still hailed a four-quarter effort against a mature team. Significantly, the Dockers cobbled together just 38 points for the afternoon, and Caleb Daniel's goal after the siren that stretched the margin to a game-high 65 points was a fitting end.
The defenders were at their creative best, Tom Liberatore returned to the fray with a rock-solid 25-possession game, Jordan Roughead made the most of Aaron Sandilands' absence by jumping all over Jonathan Griffin and Zac Clarke, and up front Stringer excited every time he went near the ball.
"He's not a bad player, is he?" Suckling said of Stringer, who kicked five. "We're pretty lucky, we've got some crazy forwards up there. When they go to work they do some special things."
The speed of Beveridge's team was always going to test Ross Lyon's outfit, and while the game had its dormant stretches their composure on the whole was noteworthy, releasing defensively by hand and foot to buy time and pick a way through Fremantle's high press. Liberatore's welcome-back goal, the second of a seven-goal Bulldogs' first quarter, was instructive as a string of Dogs traded possession until Johannisen spied a sliver of an opening and hared through it.
For the Dockers all omens were miserable. Pavlich had an early chance to increase Adams' first-game nerves but missed from 30 metres. When Dunkley and Mitch Wallis made handball mistakes, Hayden Ballantyne hit the post from 20.
The second quarter began with the unimaginable, Pavlich dropping a chest mark that was sharked by Fyfe, who stormed goalward only to be mown down by Adams. Eight minutes into the term Chris Mayne looked to have finally kicked Freo's first. Ten minutes in a tedious score review finally deemed it had clipped the very top of the goalpost padding.
Around Stringer's spectacular, soccered second and Suckling's cool-as-a-cucumber first in red, white and blue the Dogs missed the target 10 times for six behinds (including two posters) and four shots kicked into the crowd. And still the Dockers outbumbled them.
The passage to their first goal, to Michael Walters amid ironic cheers, featured kicks grubbed along the ground from Lachie Neale and Stephen Hill, and an over-zealous Ballantyne play-on.Â
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