David King believes the Western Bulldogs’ close win over Melbourne on Saturday night was just a taste of things to come from the top of the table.
The Dogs held the Dees at arm’s length for most of the night, but twice Simon Goodwin’s side were able to close the margin in a rush.
“It’s going to come down to small margins,” King told SEN’s Whateley.
“If I’m a Melbourne fan today, I’m thinking 'that was a pretty good exercise for us,’ and if I’m a Dogs fan I’m going ‘we’ve exposed a few flaws in their game.’
“Both coaching panels would be saying ‘let’s really break this down,’ because they’re going to play them again, whether it’s the first week, third week or fourth week of the finals.”
King gushed over the tussle of tactical philosophies, which saw Goodwin place trust in his interceptors and Dogs coach Luke Beveridge back in his onballers.
“We know how Melbourne play. They hold their six defenders,” he began to explain.
“If you want to roll a half-forward up to a stoppage, they’re happy for you to do that. If you want to roll two, they’ll hold their six, so it’ll be six versus four behind the ball.
“They want to springboard, or counterpunch or slingshot… if they lose clearance, (the ball goes) into an outnumber and then go.
“We’ve seen Richmond do it, we’ve seen Hawthorn do it… it gives you defensive stability and it makes you hard to score against. That’s their method.”
The Dees possess the second-best defensive record, having conceded 67.2 points per game, but only the seventh-best offensive record with 83.5 points per game.
By contrast, the Dogs have conceded just eight more points across the entire season, but average 94.7 points the other way.
“(Melbourne) aren’t going to change now,” King went on.
“This is Simon Goodwin saying ‘this is us.’ Flag in the ground.”
“For Max Gawn, Christian Petracca (and) Clayton Oliver at the clearance, you’re going to be outnumbered. Go your hardest, see if you can get a result.”
King pinpointed parallels between the Dogs’ compactness, which sees extra numbers roll up to the contest from both ends, and how Greater Western Sydney overcame the Dees in Round 16.
“Leon Cameron - and this is where the competition learns from the competition - decided ‘why don’t we use Whitfield and Kelly at times coming up as a half forward?’” King recalled.
“Whitfield was best on ground that day, and Kelly was probably second best on ground.
“On the weekend it was Bontempelli and Macrae. Best on ground and second-best on ground were coming up as extras to the stoppage.”
“You see Bont moving other players around, saying ‘I need you to be there, you’re nominally the wingman, and you’re nominally the half forward, so they’ll drop off me…’”
Bontempelli registered 31 disposals, 10 inside 50s and 755 metres gained, but his spatial awareness cut the Dees deepest with his two goals from forward 50 stoppages.
“In the end, through sheer weight of numbers, (Melbourne) said to Harmes ‘you have to go and lock him away,” King continued.
“This is Bevo saying ‘I’m going to get what I want given the structure that you want.’
“Two coaches boxes going head to head. It was a fantastic tactical battle.”
Beveridge’s boys are back on top while Melbourne have slipped to third, but King doesn’t believe the outcome has necessarily separated the two teams.
“(The Dogs) got maximum out of Bontempelli, maximum out of Macrae, the small wall Caleb Daniel ran his own race,” he enthused.
“Those three did as they pleased through the course of the evening and had maximum nights. Does that happen again next time?
“I don’t know. Do (Melbourne) say ‘we’ve got to make a subtle tweak… if Bontempelli and Macrae are in the stoppage vicinity, drop off your other match-up and go toe-to-toe with him.’”
“The result is the result, the four points don’t really matter. It’s just an exercise in testing what you want versus what we want, and I thought it was brilliant.”
King does harbour some concern for the volume of entries Melbourne conceded, after the Bulldogs went into their forward 50 on 55 occasions on Saturday night.
“This is what worries me. How many is too many? When do you just get through and break them?” he wondered.
“(However) both teams played the way they wanted to, and both teams walk away saying ‘do we need to make change? Probably not.’”