WESTERN Bulldogs caretaker coach Paul Williams left Saturday's 46-point loss to Hawthorn even more determined to improve the team's defensive side, and concerned about how highly his players valued "helping out their mates".

Williams, who has stated he wants the full-time position at Whitten Oval, has approached his first two games in the caretaker role with an emphasis on not "reinventing the wheel", but tweaking the defensive side of the Dogs' game plan.

On Saturday, he was pleased with the performance of Liam Picken, who ran with Cyril Rioli and kept the Hawks' goalsneak to nine possessions and one goal before he was subbed off with calf soreness, and some of his younger, more inexperienced players like Liam Jones, Jayden Schofield and Jordan Roughead.

But he was overall frustrated with many of his players, who didn't meet his standards when it came to the team elements of the game plan.  

"I think young 'Roughy' had some moments that were good and some that were a bit average," he said.

"I think that typified them, and that's what kids do. They give you that. They're OK for one contest and then the next one they're probably not as strong.

"That's something that we know and we don't want to live with it but we're definitely going to focus on having a real defensive style as a whole group

"That's something that we just don't value yet. We don't value helping our mates enough.

"You learn a lot. We've got some work to do though. We have got some work to do and that's what a summer of football is going to give you."

Picken appeared to be an exception to that statement. Williams said the 25-year-old possessed traits he wanted spread across his entire list.

"He's a terrific competitor. He's built of all the stuff you'd love the 22 blokes to have in their body," he said.

"He competed really hard, Cyril is a wonderful player as we all know, and he did an OK job.

"Apart from a couple of his brilliant solo efforts with that contested mark and whatnot, I didn't think he had a huge influence on the game."

The reality was, the Dogs fielded a side that possessed 10 players with less than 20 games experience, and had Lukas Markovic - a veteran of 14 games before Saturday - playing on Lance Franklin.

Despite Franklin's five goals, Williams said Markovic's performance was pleasing considering the Hawks had 65 inside 50s to the Dogs' 32.

He also defended his game plan that saw a man, mainly Josh Hill and at times Daniel Cross, behind the ball, which Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson said was going to make it hard for the Dogs to kick enough goals to win.

"We only had one behind the ball and we went in with a plan to protect our backline a little bit because we were decimated as you guys know with our talls," he said.

"I thought Markovic did a really good job on Buddy with how many inside 50s they had.

"The plan went pretty well for a fair bit and then when we started to get tired, it fell away and in the last quarter we dropped it totally, just to give our guys a bit of a chance to play a bit quicker going into next week's game."

Williams said Barry Hall, who kicked four goals and has booted 40 since round 14, was still providing the team with plenty of upside despite his reduced game time.

"He's had a really good seven weeks but we're hardly seeing him on training track at all now, he's sore, but he's doing an enormous job for us," he said.

"He's sore and he's old and he's creaky and all that sort of stuff. He's coming off more because of that.

"At the peak of his powers, he'd only come off once a game but now we really need to make sure he gets at least four rotations a game otherwise he dies in the backside a little bit."

The Dogs lost Easton Wood before the bounce to the ankle he tweaked on Wednesday at training, but are confident they will have him back for next week's clash with Fremantle, which Williams said during the week would be retiring ruckman Ben Hudson's farewell game.

A broken hand sustained by Ayce Cordy will give the coaches more headaches in regards to replacing yet another tall defender, but will at least provide an avenue for Hudson to return.

Still, Williams couldn't help advertise for suitable replacements for Cordy, given his depleted backline already missing Brian Lake, Ryan Hargrave and Dale Morris, and on Saturday, Wood.

"Our backline has broken a window or something," he said.

"We'll get creative again at the selection table. Any of you guys fit and healthy and want to have a kick?"

Jennifer Witham covers Western Bulldogs news for the AFL Website. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenWitham.