Bulldogs confident against Tigers

Western Bulldogs Nick Lower, Koby Stevens, Brett Goodes and Tom Young celebrate their first victory. Picture: Klein Michael Source: Herald Sun

THE Western Bulldogs are taking heart from a tight pre-season clash with Richmond as they seek to dent the Tigers' strong season start.

Richmond is heavy favouritess to beat the Dogs at Etihad Stadium and make it three wins in succession to open their season.

That would be the Tigers' best start since 1995.

But the Bulldogs, who thrashed Brisbane in the opening round, have been buoyed by their own early-season form.

While they fell 28 points short of Fremantle last round, Dogs assistant coach Shannon Grant said given the respect in which they held the Dockers it was a decent performance.

"For a young team to be able to come up against such a strong side and put in a pretty strong effort I thought it was a good result, it gives us some confidence," Grant said.

That they had pushed a strong Tigers side hard on the last weekend of the pre-season has also built belief.

On that occasion, the Bulldogs led by as much as 18 points midway through the third quarter, before Richmond finished fast to win by nine points.

"That game gave the boys a lot of confidence," Grant said.

"We played pretty well that day. They ran away from us in the last quarter but the boys were pretty solid for most of the day.

"We can learn from lessons from that and take some things out of what worked well for us."

One factor that helped the Bulldogs was the blanketing job performed by ex-Fremantle recruit Nick Lower on Tigers star Trent Cotchin.

Lower has since opened the season with similarly successful stopping roles on Brisbane's Daniel Rich and Fremantle's David Mundy.

Grant said Lower would spend time on Cotchin again on Sunday, although given the Tigers' midfield depth - with the likes of Brett Deledio and Dustin Martin also danger men - they couldn't focus too heavily on one player.

But Grant said the Bulldogs were also building strong midfield depth, with clearance specialist Tom Liberatore one of a group of young, emerging players making good progress.

Jordan Roughead, who has performed well on Lions co-captain Jonathan Brown and Fremantle skipper Matthew Pavlich in the opening two rounds, is likely to get the job on in-form Richmond Coleman Medallist Jack Riewoldt.

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