What is Going on in Footscray

What is Going on in Footscray

GuyWhoLikesSport GuyWhoLikesSport

*Windhorst fingers* what is going on in Footscray?

They’re having a very strange season. Very strange season.

By the premiership metrics, there is not a single better with the footy/territory team in the AFL.

By the ladder that just looks at your games against the top-9 teams, they’re 1-8 and ahead of only North Melbourne, Essendon and West Coast.

Why would the Dogs do that?

Is it as simple as they’re a paper tiger?

They just beat up on bad teams but can’t match it with the top end?

Or is there something deeper afoot?

An autopsy of the numbers and a revisit at the actual game in those eight losses shows that the Bulldogs are the 2025 AFL Mike Tyson.

The Dogs need the game to go their way but struggle if they encounter meaningful resistance.

The problem is that there are a lot more Buster Douglas’ in the AFL than there were in heavyweight division in 1990.

Beating up on the bad teams is a symptom, but the cause is deeper.
This is an elite contest and front half team that lives off the territory battle.

At their core they’re this is a classic Bevo-ball footy team and like all Bevo teams it’s about three things: contest, transition, field position.

This team, more than most, exemplifies the platonic ideal of Bevo’s western front, trench warfare attitude.

They’re top-5 in clearances and contested ball, first in forward 50 ground ball gets, time in forward half, and fourth in tackles inside 50.

They’re grinders.

More than that, they hurt you.

They lead the league in front half scoring total and are second in front half scoring differential.

When the game is on their terms, like it almost always is against bad teams, they bludgeon you.

It’s Tyson hooks to the liver that left Jesse Ferguson pissing blood for a week.

But if they can’t play the game on those terms, they’re bad.

This isn’t a criticism of Bevo.

In fact, his principles around contest, field position and territory are completely in line with modern footy and they suit this Dogs list.

The issue isn’t the method.

It’s that the method is the only way they can win.

Let’s get specific: The Dogs are the second-best front-half scoring differential team in the AFL.

But they’ve lost that stat in eight games this year and are 1-7 in those games with all losses to current top-eight teams.

In their only other loss (to Fremantle), they won front-half scoring by a goal.

This gets me to my larger point.

The reason the front half game is so important for the Bulldogs is because their defence is so poor.

Their first line of defence is effectively their best and only line of defence.

The front half game isn’t a feature, it’s the whole car.

You can’t win premierships with this defence.

Rory Lobb, James O’Donnell, Liam Jones last week, Jedd Busslinger early in the season do not a good defence make to say nothing of the improving but still not elite Lachie Bramble and Luke Cleary.

Even Bailey Dale, the engine of their transition game, is not an accountable player.

Part of that is structural.

Watching the Dogs, you always notice how they move.

They run in packs, hunting and surging.

There’s always numbers around the ball but rarely ahead of it.

They don’t position players forward of the ball.

Instead, they carry the ball forward with waves of support, using overlap handballs and aggressive running.

Once they get it inside 50, those numbers don’t stop.

Everyone follows the ball in, other than the defenders who set up very aggressively. That creates momentum and gives them constant options to chain forward, which helps make them an elite front-half team.

But it comes at a cost.

It’s like their whole style is modelled on John Wick after his dog died.

It’s kill or be killed.

Because when that forward surge breaks down, they have nothing behind the ball, which makes them the worst finals contender at defending turnover.

Simply, when the ball goes inside 50 against them, they’re probably dead.

And they’re mostly getting killed by the good teams, who sweat on them around the contests knowing that dump kicks will go to 1v3s for Naughton or Darcy.

The Dogs set up for that, betting on Naughton or Darcy to halve the contests and sometimes, because they’re good players, they do.

But the good teams can win those situations and the ball away, using the Dogs’ aggression against them and expose their average defence.

Brisbane did that really well last week, and so did Adelaide in round 18.

Given their personnel, I’d make that bet too.

You bet on your strengths and try to minimise your weaknesses.

You’ve got a shaky back six, but dominant midfielders like Bontempelli, Liberatore, and Richards, emerging guns in Sanders and Freijah, and small forward firepower in Rhylee West supporting Naughton and Darcy.

The problem is I’d be wrong a lot.

What is going on in Footscray? They’re playing the odds and losing.