Like their number one supporter Julia Gillard, the Western Bulldogs just can’t take a trick at the moment and appear to be in a world of trouble.

The Bulldogs one win came in the opening round against the struggling Brisbane Lions but in their five subsequent outings, haven’t been able to get closer than 21 points to their opponents and in three of these five matches, have lost by margins greater than 50.

Last week they were never in the hunt when taking on West Coast in WA and they won’t find things any easier this week against North.

The Kangas have only the two wins to their names but narrow – heart-breaking loses in some cases, against benchmark sides such as Geelong and Hawthorn, indicate that they should be sitting higher on the ladder than their current ranking of eleventh.

They proved that true last week by handing Port their first loss of the season but, after leading by as many as 33 points in the final quarter, were given a scare late with Port able to whittle that lead to 10 by the time the siren sounded.

North will need to be more ruthless than that if they are to compete with the top sides and they get the chance to exercise this quality against the Bulldogs. Expecting them to rack up the points and cover the line

TIP:  NORTH MELBOURNE -36.5 @ $1.92

Odds Comparison:

Western Bulldogs	7.75	8.00	8.50	8.00	7.75	7.75
North Melbourne Kangaroos	1.08	1.07	1.07	1.07	1.08	1.09

Teams:

Western Bulldogs:
B: Dale Morris, Jordan Roughead, Lukas Markovic
HB: Liam Picken, Tom Young, Jason Johannisen
C: Tom Liberatore, Matthew Boyd, Nick Lower
HF: Clay Smith, Liam Jones, Daniel Giansiracusa
F: Luke Dahlhaus, Robert Murphy, Dylan Addison
Foll: Will Minson, Adam Cooney, Ryan Griffen
Int: Jason Tutt, Mitch Wallis, Mark Austin, Daniel Cross
Emerg: Koby Stevens, Christian Howard, Tom Campbell

In: D.Giansiracusa , R.Murphy , R.Griffen , L.Markovic
Out: K.Stevens, C.Howard, J.Stringer (soreness), J.Macrae (soreness)

North Melbourne Kangaroos:
B: Scott McMahon, Scott Thompson, Jamie Macmillan
HB: Aaron Mullett, Michael Firrito, Brent Harvey
C: Daniel Wells, Shaun Atley, Ryan Bastinac
HF: Aaron Black, Majak Daw, Sam Wright
F: Lindsay Thomas, Drew Petrie, Leigh Adams
Fol: Todd Goldstein, Andrew Swallow, Jack Ziebell
Int: Ben Cunnington, Sam Gibson, Taylor Hine, Will Sierakowski
Emer: Brad McKenzie, Lachlan Hansen, Kieran Harper

In: B.Harvey
Out: N.Grima (soreness)