WESTERN BULLDOGS 3.7 5.13 9.18 17.20 (122)
BRISBANE LIONS 5.0 12.3 12.5 14.6 (90)
Goals: Western Bulldogs: J Dunkley 3 J Stringer 3 T McLean 2 C Smith J Johannissen J Macrae L Dahlhaus L Picken M Adams M Bontempelli R Murphy T Boyd. Brisbane Lions: E Hipwood 3 B Keays 2 D Zorko 2 R Lester 2 C Beams H McCluggage L Taylor M Robinson T Rockliff
Best: Western Bulldogs: Johannisen, Macrae, Dahlhaus, Picken, Adams, Stringer, Murphy. Brisbane Lions: Zorko, Robinson, D Beams, Taylor, Martin, McStay
Umpires: Justin Schmitt, Sam Hay, Nathan Williamson.
Official Crowd: 31,822 at Etihad Stadium
The occasion of Western Bulldogs captain Bob Murphy's 300th AFL game had been celebrated all week with an outpouring of sentimentality rarely seen for other milestones.
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Bulldogs rally late to prevent Lions upset
The Lions looked like they might spoil the party as Robert Murphy celebrated 300 games, before the Bulldogs awoke in the third quarter to seal it late.
It was emotional, heartfelt and rightly earned. But at the end of it all, the Bulldogs still had a game to play, one they were expected to win in a canter against a hardly-rated opponent.
You'd barely have known in the lead-up that the Bulldogs actually had an opponent, let alone one already with a low enough profile as it was. That left Brisbane in a sense with little to lose, but an enormous applecart they could potentially upset. And boy, did they give it a crack.
The tone of the first quarter was set early with young Lion key forward Eric Hipwood booting the first two goals of the game. Like most of Brisbane's early scores, however, they would come from isolated attacks, Hipwood cleverly dropping out the back into space.
Even before the Bulldogs had registered a single goal they'd doubled Brisbane for inside 50s, and when they scored the next three, courtesy of regular defender Marcus Adams, playing forward, Jack Macrae and Jason Johannisen, the tide of possession looked set to become a tide on the scoreboard.
Except the Doggies couldn't find the bigger sticks, the quarter-time legacy of that largesse 3.7. Lin Jong missed, three times. Jake Stringer racked up a couple. Toby McLean and Lachie Hunter missed. Marcus Bontempelli hit the post.
And every time the Lions went forward, they made it count. Hipwood had his third, again on the counter-attack and out the back. The impressive Hugh McCluggage snapped the first of what will surely be many in a long career, and when Ryan Lester got yet another sneaking behind the last Bulldog defender, Brisbane had hit the front.
Surely that was an aberration, and normal transmission would be resumed shortly. Or not. Instead, the contrast in efficiency between the two sides reached almost comical levels as Brisbane slammed on another 7.3 to the Bulldogs' 2.6.
After a run of six unanswered goals, the Lions, astonishingly, led by 37 points. They couldn't miss, another impressive kid, Ben Keays, chipping in with a second for the term after Lewis Taylor won a terrific contested ball against Johannisen.
Dayne Zorko was everywhere. As was Taylor, who slipped the bigger, stronger Bontempelli's tackle and straightened up to goal. Mitch Robinson was a pressure machine. And when the Bulldogs went inside, which was often, Daniel McStay cleaned up superbly.
And while they were still getting comfortably beaten on all the possession and time in possession indicators, Brisbane simply couldn't miss where it mattered most. After Claye Beams made it a six-goals-plus margin, the Lions had booted 12.1 from just 16 inside 50s, a strike rate of 81.25 per cent. The usual rate is about 30-odd per cent.
Josh Dunkley broke the run of Brisbane dead-eye dicks with a goal on the run from a turnover shortly before half-time. And come the third term, the Bulldogs actually managed to both dominate play, and the scoreboard.
Four goals in a seven-minute burst dragged that five-goals-plus gap back to single digits, the Bulldog spark lit for perhaps the first time all day when Jake Stringer charged out of a centre bounce to bomb one.
The 300-gamer, steady all day as teammates struggled for touch, also got in on the act. And as you'd expect, when it mattered most.
Murphy kicked a goal of his own in the third term after a costly mistake from a Brisbane trainer, running into a protected area, gave him the benefit of a 50-metre penalty and point blank range.
He then set up two more in the final term with the game on the line, both to Josh Dunkley, not a noted goalkicker, but who managed to end up with three. The second of those was important, answering Brisbane's first goal of the half. The third, from a lovely-weighted Murphy pass, was probably the final nail in the coffin.
It was pretty comfortable in the finish, eight goals, the last seven uninterrupted, making the margin 32 points, a 70-point turnaround. And so an important occasion in the club's history was marked fittingly, Brisbane players graciously forming a guard of honour as the Bulldogs left the ground.
The Lions could at least be happy not having proved pushovers. The Dogs? Well, not for the first time this season, they got the points. And however unconvincingly that bottom line was delivered, it was the very least they owed their skipper.
Votes:
Jason Johannisen (WB) ...8
Dayne Zorko (Bris)...........8
Jack Macrae (WB)...........7
Luke Dahlhaus (WB).......7
Mitch Robinson (Bris)......7