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Crunch Time

Round 7 - Sydney Flex over the Dogs at Crossroads (25.04.26)

25 Apr 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What were the highlights of Sydney's victory over the Bulldogs?

0.031 - 22.866 Unknown

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23.96 - 50.016 Kane Cornes

Around the corner, Charlie is feasting on a Thursday night. Seven goals, two. There was a kill to be had, and Sydney took their kill. This is the Thursday night wrap for Brandt. Discover the Brandt Advantage. Reliable John Deere construction equipment and support that keeps you running. So, Kernow tuned up. Yeah. But the most... Have we ever seen a team do it to quite this degree?

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50.057 - 55.666 Kane Cornes

The forward handball, which Ken Hinckley is plotting, reached 867 metres on Thursday night.

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55.906 - 72.876 Gerard Whateley

Still waiting to see if that was an AFL record. Benny Lyon's still working on that one, obviously, since Thursday. But, I mean, that's how they started the year. And we thought, I thought, well, that's one way. There's got to be other – if you just live off that, you're going to get worked out. And I thought they got worked out against Hawthorne the next week.

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72.896 - 88.865 Gerard Whateley

And then they had that bye, Gerard. And when they went into the bye period, I thought they went away and worked on the other parts of the game. It's still the most electric part and you're doing it through the corridor and you're doing it with Blakey and these types of players. And then you get ahead of the ball and then you catch the opposition defenders out of play.

88.905 - 103.139 Gerard Whateley

They're doing all that, but they're defending behind it well. They know how to change gears. Their stoppage work. And on the way, it was a little bit unfair. I was waiting for a Bevo masterclass. We're going to pull these reins, tie on this emotion, the 10-year reunion.

103.179 - 114.452 Gerard Whateley

But when you just don't have the cattle, you can't polish that to a point where it's – they started well and then Grundy was just – He just had his way with that whole night, didn't he?

Chapter 2: How did Sydney's game strategy impact their performance?

114.492 - 125.271 Gerard Whateley

So he probably walks away the best player, knowing that the full forwards kick seven goals to himself. So probably said a lot about Sydney and their power, but probably says a little bit more about the Bulldogs and where they're at.

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125.331 - 131.001 Kane Cornes

So that's where our conversation resides is, gosh, Aaron Norton's...

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130.981 - 150.498 Simon O'Donnell

That is such a relief that he's okay. It was sickening to the point where I think both host broadcasters, Fox and Seven, only played it once with a warning. We're only playing this once and that's it. So a scan cleared him of any major damage. He's got a minor strain to his neck, essentially a spasm, and he's a chance to face Fremantle, which is just remarkable given how ugly it looked.

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151.079 - 168.261 Simon O'Donnell

But they've got other injuries as well. So Tim English is a chance, but not 100% to play. Artie Jones is a chance. Rory Lobb trained on Wednesday. had another scan, he'll miss three to four weeks with a hamstring. And then they've got James O'Donnell amongst others. Marcus Bontempele played well, but looked sore with that knee injury.

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168.582 - 176.175 Simon O'Donnell

So they're in a world of hurt having lost their last three and an injury list, not just extensive, but so much quality on that injury list, Gerard.

176.155 - 196.388 Gerard Whateley

Ken spoke a lot about on Thursday night about why they're playing Bont in that last quarter. Your opinion on the fact that Bont, the game was done and he was just trying to drag the team over the line. And once he got to 10 goals, we sort of thought maybe with what's going on, you look after the players a little bit. But he played out the game, didn't he? He did. And he was heroic.

197.149 - 221.434 Kane Cornes

He... He held the Bulldogs together as best he could, but it puts Miles on the clock. Yeah. And he's clearly sore. Now, they've taken the view that he can't get worse by playing, but you can also wear players out. These two weeks are incredibly difficult to navigate, in my opinion. You're going to lose both of these games with the personnel that they've got.

221.414 - 228.044 Kane Cornes

So what level of self-preservation do you put in place and what level of lay it all out there do you put in place?

228.404 - 248.694 Gerard Whateley

Well, and other scars being left, Gerard. I mean, these aren't just, you know, honourable losses, are they? They've become quite concerning. And, you know, it's early in the year. They've got Fremantle next week and then they've got Port Adelaide and then the Blues. So your conversation around, okay, we get the band back together, take our medicine for the next two weeks.

Chapter 3: What are the implications of injuries for the Bulldogs' season?

269.635 - 291.368 Gerard Whateley

I still think there's an opportunity to respond. But unfortunately on the weekend, their better players didn't play well. You know, the Ed Richards types, they need to be off the charts. And his form's dropped way off since English has got out of the side, his own injury concerns. So there's some players there who could carry the can. They're not at the moment.

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292.01 - 298.521 Kane Cornes

What about how you play through this? And this is, you've had some time to think about, particularly the defence.

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298.942 - 315.512 Gerard Whateley

Yeah. It was really obvious on the weekend that the best way to play at the moment, I think, when you've got really good pressure up the ground is you are proactive defense. Not completely disconnected from Kernow, but you're playing in front almost, knowing that it should be a little surge kick from a contest.

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315.492 - 332.658 Gerard Whateley

We must have seen 12 goals the other night when Sydney took them on like they do with their forward handball. You break one layer of defence and all of a sudden the poor defenders are just too far in front. It goes out the back and they must have kicked seven goals, eight goals. from that particular play from the back half.

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333.099 - 349.412 Gerard Whateley

So they're going to have to look at how they defend, Gerard, because you can't put those lambs to the slaughter. And sometimes you've just got to go back shoulder. Sometimes you need an extra behind. Sometimes you've got to find a way to curtail your biggest weaknesses because it was personnel. It wasn't really system, but the personnel... made the system look bad.

350.635 - 361.648 Gerard Whateley

The ruck situation, the clearances through the floor now, their way, the one-on-one defence is non-existent. And unfortunately, it's a bit of personnel. So you might have to change the system, unfortunately.

362.489 - 366.977 Kane Cornes

Yes, and so Lobb and O'Donnell are going to miss together for, well, at least three more now.

366.997 - 385.087 Gerard Whateley

At least three, maybe more than that. I think about Norton maybe going back. I brought it up. Kenny knocked me over with it. Never knocks anyone over with it who wants to bring it up. Well, that's what happened. Yeah, that was the conversation. But there was that stark. Like, we've had Kernow kick 10 against us, and we had – Brady Hoff on him because we didn't have McGovern or Barass.

385.247 - 387.61 Gerard Whateley

And I was like, who else is out there that can actually defend?

Chapter 4: How did Aaron Norton's injury affect the Bulldogs' game?

491.057 - 510.064 Gerard Whateley

So those little things you think, oh, we can fix that. But that's a big problem for the Bulldogs to concede so many scores against from when you've got the ball at the kick-in level. They can look at structure to help that. And it happened with Richmond as well. They conceded plenty of scores for those particular players. They conceded five goals too. So...

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510.044 - 518.015 Gerard Whateley

It's interesting when you go into coaching, you talk about forward 50 stoppages, clearances, turnovers, but if the kick-ins and zones aren't right, it's a really big success indicator.

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518.035 - 526.547 Kane Cornes

Yeah. And they do have, and this is the truth about the Bulldogs, as soon as injury strikes, they get incredibly young and incredibly inexperienced. Yeah.

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526.927 - 540.866 Gerard Whateley

And that would play a role there, wouldn't it? We value the list. Where do we see it? Tom, you can do the... I mean, I know there's a Kane who's over-indexing the top-end talent, probably, but where do we see the depth chart... of a list. Where would they sit?

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540.946 - 553.338 Simon O'Donnell

Well, the dogs see themselves as they have good depth, but when all the tools are missing at once, it makes it almost impossible. You can't say that though. Well, you can only, you have good depth to a point, but in the end, well, give me the good depth to no point, just a depth chart.

553.358 - 554.279 Gerard Whateley

You should do that.

554.299 - 574.834 Kane Cornes

I'll give it to you. But as soon as they lost English, so one player, the game against Hawthorne, they were in the bottom four for games played and experience. And they were there with West coast, Richmond and Essendon. That's not the profile of a premiership team. And then it compounds with the next injury and the next injury. But that was ground zero.

575.235 - 578.82 Kane Cornes

One injury, we're straight down in that water.

579 - 586.891 Simon O'Donnell

So they're still young with some top-end talent. Against the Swans, they had eight players with 20 or less games. And the Swans averaged 42 more games.

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