THE WESTERN Bulldogs will look at rejigging its misfiring forward line after its shock 16-point loss to previously bottom-placed Fremantle at Domain Stadium.
Coach Luke Beveridge was full of praise for Fremantle but frustrated that the Bulldogs didn’t make the most of their forward entries when they were in charge through the middle period of the match.
"Some of it is poor completion of those plays but some of it’s just Fremantle holding back, being a bit of a dam wall," Beveridge said.
"But we should have capitalised on a few more."
Travis Cloke went goalless, as did Tom Boyd, while Jake Stringer managed the solitary goal of the trio.
Wingman Lachie Hunter bobbed up with three goals and captain Bob Murphy booted two - half of the side’s 10 goals for the match.
Three goals for Lachie Hunter so far but this one takes the cake! #AFLFreoDogs pic.twitter.com/zZS5Mg8hQ4
— AFL (@AFL) April 8, 2017
Stewart Crameri missed the match with hip soreness while other premiership forwards Tory Dickson (groin), Clay Smith and Josh Dunkley also did not play.
"(Crameri) may be available (next week)," Beveridge said.
"There’s a couple of boys who have been missing out in recent times who are knocking on the door, in Josh Dunkley and Clay Smith, and maybe one or two others.
"So you always look at that week to week."
The Bulldogs were jumped by the under-fire Dockers, who slammed on four unanswered goals in nine minutes to start the match, then finished with 5.1 to 0.1 in a blistering last quarter.
In between the reigning premiers held sway, pushing their lead out to 14 points at the last change.
But Beveridge said while the Dogs were slightly off their best, all credit should go to the Dockers.
"I thought Fremantle's performance was quite outstanding," Beveridge said.
"They jumped us obviously, clear as day. We weren't prepared for that unfortunately and it felt like we were before the game.
"We expected a fight from them but it took us a lot of energy to claw our way back and I thought we had a very good third quarter and just didn't capitalise on all those entries.
"Then they came again and full credit to them, they played really, really well."
Beveridge said it was hard to know where the Dogs were in relation to their very best.
"It’s our objective to become a team that can really put teams to bed on the scoreboard but we haven’t done that, ever, really," he said.
"We have won the occasional game by a margin but we’re not that side that wins by a lot yet, we’d like to be, that’s where we want to go.
"We expect every week that we need to be at our best to beat everyone and as good as Fremantle were, we were slightly off our best and that’s all it takes.
"Where are we at? We are at round three and obviously there’s a long way to go but we are disappointed we haven’t got that 3-0 staring at us on the ladder. But it just gets back to Fremantle’s very, very good performance tonight."
WATCH: Luke Beveridge's full post-match press conference
The Dockers were the last team to beat the Dogs before they went on their remarkable run to the 2016 flag.
And they are now the first side to defeat them in 2017.
"It seems like the last two times we’ve played them they’ve had reason to shine when (it was) Matthew Pavlich’s last game at the end of last year which probably woke us up on the eve of the finals … they were very good," Beveridge said.
"And under a bit of duress and probably under a bit of pressure and a bit of change and they were very good.
"So they seem to be bringing their best performances."