OVERCOMING a serious injury to Britney Gutknecht and described as the “walking wounded” by coach Nathan Burke, the Western Bulldogs remained undefeated in their AFL Women’s Season 7 campaign from the first two rounds. Despite inaccuracy threatening to derail their hopes, the Bulldogs did enough to secured the 3.10 (28) to 1.3 (9) victory over Port Adelaide in the Power’s first ever home game at Alberton Oval.

The big story out of the game was the sickening injury to young talent Gutknecht late in the second term as a late smother on her kick saw the 21-year-old clutch her leg and have to be transported from the ground. Burke said her injury, and the way the team reacted to it showed how loved she was to the playing group.

“You love to win, but it’s just that sort of that knot in the gut for Britney who I’m not going to go into the whole backstory, but she’s just worked so hard to get herself into this team, playing into a position that’s not quite hers, but I just had to put her into the team with how hard she’s worked,” Burke said. “As you can see the girls were a bit flat in that third quarter, came out and that’s just natural they’re going to feel that way, but at the end of the day, Britney’s last words were ‘tell em to win’ and they did.”

Gutknecht was not the only one who was in the wars, with skipper Ellie Blackburn overcoming a quiet first term and a facial injury to play a key role in the Bulldogs’ win. Burke praised his captain’s work rate to fight against adversity.

“We were the walking wounded a little bit,” he said. “She actually cut her lip, her teeth went straight through the lip, and then to get out there and do what she did with that sort of facial injury which is very distracting. “That’s just Ellie Blackburn though, you can almost say, forgive her for almost play it down, and say it’s just Ellie. But to sit back and have the cut there and lead the way she did, that’s enormous.”

The Bulldogs had 13 scoring shots to four in the match, with inaccuracy hurting the visitors. Burke said it was more to it than just missing shots on goal, and the team would go back and analysis their forward 50 entries and decision making in the front half.

“The forward entries, we had a lot of them, especially in that last quarter, but it’s about we’re having shots from too far out, we’re kicking the balls not really to the advantage of the tall forwards,” Burke said. “So a lot of things, it’s a bonus you win and you come off thinking ‘gee there’s a lot of things we can clean up’ so that’s pretty much what today was.”

Given the occasion for Port Adelaide being the Power’s first ever home game, Burke was pleased with how his troops handled the occasion and moved to 2-0 for Season 7.

“I don’t think we’ve been two and zip with me coaching so that’s good, and to win on the road too, we’ve only got two games on the road, so to get one under your belt and (it’s) probably a privilege in this particular game, Port Adelaide’s home game, it was a big crowd, a good stadium, all that sort of stuff,” Burke said. “It’s great to be able to play in it and experience the Port Adelaide gamestyle.”

Western Bulldogs will play host to Fremantle on Friday, September 9, in what should be a massive clash given the opposite standings of the side thus far.