Bulldogs ready to match Giants: Beveridge

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says last year’s elimination final capitulation against GWS has been forgotten in the lead up to Friday night’s AFL clash.

The Bulldogs will face the Giants for the first time since they were beaten up around the ball and knocked out of last year’s finals series to the tune of 58 points.

Beveridge said the Bulldogs would handle whatever their modern-day rivals threw at them at Marvel Stadium.

“Whether they can come with the same attitude or intent or not, we’ll be prepared for whatever comes our way,” Beveridge said.

“But the important thing is when push comes to shove that you win the game of football.

“It’s too far in the rear vision mirror, the elimination (final); we’ve moved on.

“And now it’s all about us as a team finding our best football – whether it’s GWS this week or, or one of the other teams we haven’t played, it doesn’t really matter.”

“We started the game reasonably well against St Kilda but then some things crept in and the boys are upbeat, they’re positive.

“They know what the formula is for us to play our best and now we’ve just got to mix the chemicals the right way.”

A pre-season top-four fancy, the Bulldogs have slumped to a 0-2 start and Beveridge said there were “blatant” issues to amend across the park.

“It’s a bit of a different forward line again with (Josh Bruce) joining us and we haven’t had any fluency there,” Beveridge said.

“Even our midfield and our back line and our counter-attack and our stuff out of stoppage hasn’t been anywhere near as productive as it was last year.

“So you have to re-establish yourself all over again and that maturity as a football team isn’t quite there yet.

“We’ve been challenged by two pretty good sides and fighting against that and then producing your own score line – we need to minimise score (against) too.”

After recovering from a knee issue, Tom Liberatore will come into contention to provide some much-needed midfield grunt, while Beveridge hinted that Jackson Trengove or Jordon Sweet could be called on to support young ruckman Tim English.

Toby McLean was left out of the Saints game but could return to the forward line.

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