Stuart Waitley

You know, Marcus Bontempele, he is just playing out of his skin at the moment.

You know, I want to say he's playing, you know, all Australian level, but he does that every year, but he just keeps getting better and better.

And also like their forward on, I know they're missing Sam Darcy, which is a significant out, but...

But, yeah, I like their smalls.

They're creative.

They're a bit like Hawthorne's forwards.

They're really damaging at ground level, but they like to chase some pressure as well.

And then, of course, Bailey Dale across halfback.

He still remains one of the best in the competition at setting them up.

When he's got the ball in hand in the back half, he is a big worry for the opposition.

So plenty of strengths for the Western Bulldogs as well.

All right.

What's keeping our coaches awake?

What's bothering Sam Mitchell looking to this game?

Well, the problem he'll have is he'll know what we know, is that Western Bulldogs are a great clearance team, and that's not what Hawthorne are.

So...

I just think that they don't necessarily need to win clearance to win games.

And even though Bulldogs might dominate center bounce or stoppages around the ground, as long as Hawthorne can control the aerial work in the back half and win the ball in the back half, that's going to be the ability for Hawthorne to sort of counterpunch going back the other way.

So as long as the clearance numbers don't get out of hand,

it won't worry Sam Mitchell as much.