It’s a grand final re-match as the Western Bulldogs host the Sydney Swans at Etihad Stadium. The Bulldogs claimed the cup last year, can the Swans get revenge?
Neither team performed as well as they would have liked to last week – the Bulldogs got a win on the board but only narrowly outperformed Collingwood.
Sydney on the other hand would have been absolutely embarrassed by their performance, shown up by a spirited Port Adelaide side.
A feature of the games was that they were both badly beaten when going for the hard ball – the Bulldogs were -16 in clearances and -26 in contested possessions. Sydney were -10 and -21 in the same categories.
Both of these sides pride themselves on the strength of their midfields and their ability to win the ball so those numbers were eat away at them a bit.
One of them will get the chance on Friday night to prove that they can still get it done, but one of them won’t, and will have some questions to answer.
Both also have mounting injury concerns – Sydney have Dane Rampe out as well as Isaac Heeney and Jarrad McVeigh who both missed last week, while the Bulldogs have lost Dale Morris and still have Tory Dickson out too.
With both sides therefore lacking regulars down back and up forward it looks like a game where the midfield battle will decide the result, and the Bulldogs appear to have greater depth albeit less stars.
The Bulldogs have won the last three of these matches, and victory by 1-39 points at $2.20 looks a real chance.