How the Western Bulldogs engineered a return to AFLW finals

It's a story that's been told countless times. The Western Bulldogs hit rock bottom in 2023, opted to undertake a review into their program, and made wholesale change. Since then, they've made steady improvement, but that hasn't been without some rocky moments along the way.

Now, the Bulldogs are locked into finals for the first time since 2022 and present as a genuine threat in the post-season, rather than simply making up the numbers. 

And while their off-field changes have been immense, and an easy starting point when it comes to analysing their improvement, what has happened on field is even more interesting.

Rock bottom

The Bulldogs finished 2023 as wooden spooners, winning one game from 10 rounds of footy just a year after reaching its second ever final. Across that season they gave up control in-game easily, and relied heavily on a small handful of players to carry the load.

This required a personnel change to start the improvement spike. A new head coach, head of footy and list manager were certainly key to the shift, but change on field was also essential.

From the playing list that reached a final in 2022 just 12 players remain, and while the club has largely focused on careful draft selections, it has also engaged in trades to add experience on top of the youth.

This list build has happened quietly. There are no boom recruits among the incoming trades, no premiership players or All-Australians in the mix as other clubs have targeted, but they have been specific choices to work toward the game plan.

Mikala Cann has been one of those players. Little more than a role player at Collingwood, albeit a very good one, Cann has been exactly the kind of midfielder/forward required at the Dogs to elevate the team as a whole.

Outside of this, the club's capacity to improve some down-and-out senior players has also been important. 

Mua Laloifi has emerged on the other side of an ACL injury in close to her best career form, offering important intercepting strength behind the ball, and Ellie Gavalas has spent a couple of years in the wilderness but now adds some leadership and ground-level speed in the forward half.

And the draftees have been carefully selected. Although some choices haven't quite come on in the way the club would have hoped — every club has been burned by a speculative pick here or there — others have been the ideal slow burn.

Emma McDonald and Elaine Grigg were arguably the Dogs' biggest-name draftees across this period, but others like Cleo Buttifant and Dom Carruthers have complemented the growth of the list.

The Bulldogs are becoming a team that is clearly greater than simply the sum of its parts. The puzzle as a whole works well together.

Build defence

The traditional route for a club's rebuild is to start with defence, then add attack, and that's exactly the direction the Bulldogs went once Tam Hyett was appointed coach in 2024.

They were coming off a base that was easy to win the ball against, easy to maintain momentum against, and ultimately far too easy to score against.

Taking back control

Finding that defensive mindset isn't simply about establishing a strong backline, rather as the numbers above suggest, it is about making the game scrappy at times to prevent the opposition from clean access at the footy. 

No longer are the Bulldogs walkovers around the footy, or easy to maintain possession against around the ground. When a team plays the Bulldogs, they are to expect a battle around the contest and pressure on the outside.

This, then, leant into tightening up on the scoreboard.

Becoming harder to score against

To get here they played some admittedly ugly footy (everyone remembers that 2024 game against the Bombers), but the first step in the plan has been the foundation upon which everything else has been built. And although some of those numbers have swung slightly back up (specifically inside 50s and marks inside 50 conceded), this has been a result of now working to find the balance between defence and attack.

Learn to attack

In Hyett's first year at the helm, the Bulldogs had their worst year in attack since the AFLW began, averaging just 26.5 points per game. Things seemed bleak and the end of the tunnel felt a long way away. But steadily, on top of that tightening defence, they have also found their own confidence to attack.

As with the defensive tightening, the first part is establishing more control through the middle of the ground, then the next layer is engaging those forwards close to goal to actually get scores on the board.

Winning the footy

Getting their hands on the footy has been a key part to winning back control throughout games, but part of that has also been a shift in how they want to use the ball. 

Instead of dump kicking the ball long to escape danger or opting for long down-the-line kicks to a contest where they can compete again, the Dogs are now establishing a clear handball game; moving neatly from layers around the contest via hand and looking for the running handball receive option to add speed on the ball.

That outside ball has been a huge growth area as they develop more confidence in their game style, and for the first time since 2022 the club is averaging a positive uncontested possession differential.

Kicking a winning score

A whole new forward line has been built, with Sarah Hartwig becoming the club's all-time leading goalkicker back in round nine, and Emma McDonald posting the most goals of any Dog in 2025, her debut season.

It has been a calm, steady club-wide build that has flown under the radar in the context of the wild swings that occur in the AFLW, but it has been done for the long haul. 

And in a fortnight, the Dogs will get a chance to show their wares in finals, and are a good chance of winning their first final since their flag in 2018.