Western Bulldogs veteran Daniel Giansiracusa says the club has learnt the hard way that a slow build through the AFL pre-season competition is better than winning it.
The Dogs made a modest start under new coach Brendan McCartney in Blacktown on Saturday night, losing narrowly to a vastly under-strength Collingwood after scraping past newcomers Greater Western Sydney.
But Giansiracusa said after spending the past five months working on their new gameplan, there was enough to like in their first competitive hit-out, with the results not too important.
“I’d hope that we weren’t playing at our best in the first round of the NAB Cup,” Giansiracusa told reporters on Wednesday.
“We’ve probably learnt at this club that we won a (pre-season) premiership a couple of years ago and we were cooked by about round 18.
“So it’s a timing thing, we’re putting things in place with our training and as I said, we’ll build up until round one against West Coast.
“There’s things to work on definitely.
“We didn’t walk away going, ‘Yep, we’re ready to go and we’re ready to win 17 or 18 games.’
“But we were happy with the competitive effort.”
The 29-year-old forward said winning the 2010 pre-season competition had been a thrill at the time, but hindsight showed they suffered later from going too hard, too soon.
“I know I’d prefer to be going that well at the business end of the season,” Giansiracusa said.
The Bulldogs have this weekend off, before meeting Carlton in round two of the pre-season competition on Sunday week.
Stars Adam Cooney and Brian Lake, who had injury-hampered 2011 seasons and did not play on Saturday night, are likely to return for that match.
The Bulldogs’ top national draft pick, hard-nosed 18-year-old midfielder Clay Smith, had his first taste of senior football on Saturday night.
Smith has already earned lavish praise from McCartney, who last week said the teenager “plays football the way you like to see it played” and was set to become an instant fan favourite.
“That’s just how I’ve been playing my whole life and obviously that’s the way he likes the game played,” the youngster said on Wednesday.
“I’ve come to a club and I’m lucky that the coach, it’s his sort of game style.”