THERE is usually something in the water around Far North Queensland, though at the Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay, the only thing biting was a ferocious Western Bulldogs outfit. Breaking through for their first interstate win under the two-season tutelage of Tam Hyett, they made light work of a disappointing Gold Coast Suns outfit to win by 11 goals.

Incredibly the Western Bulldogs had 22 scoring shots and kept the Suns to just six behinds for the match, eclipsing the Suns in an impressive performance. After a slow start to lead 1.4 (10) to 0.1 (1) at quarter time, the visitors found their grove and piled on 9.8 (62) to 0.5 (5) across the final three quarters to secure the 66-point win.

“We challenged the girls and the two years I’ve been involved we haven’t won on the road being interstate, so that’s really exciting,” Hyett said post-match. It’s always a good challenge to get together and get on the road and to come away with the win was really nice.”

The Bulldogs had 18 more disposals and 23 more contested possessions, controlling the inside which enabled them to produce 15 more inside 50s. While the Suns did rack up a lot of uncontested mark, just one of their 62 grabs came inside 50, compared to six of the Bulldogs’ 36 for the game.

Hyett said she was pleased with the way the Bulldogs moved the ball in transition.

“On the back of last year, that was a really priority for us, was to get our ball movement right and offence takes time,” she said. “But to be able to add layers to your game and to be able to get a little bit more run and carry and create some more handball receives, and that allows us then to get deeper entries. “We feel like we’re a threat forward one-on-one, so our ability to move the ball with speed assists that.”

The only multiple goalkicker was Emma McDonald with three majors, but Jessica Fitzgerald produced the most memorable of the day with a cracking major from the pocket. In what was a true team performance, the Dogs share the ball around and had eight individual goalkickers in the win. Hyett praised the work of McDonald.

“She works really hard,” Hyett said. “For a first year player she’s like a sponge. “She’s had some really good educations through our forwards coach and the other players around her assist as well. “She’s just a raw talent, it’s really exciting to see her putting some consistency together with her games and she’s having a good season.”

A couple of weeks ago, the Bulldogs were in the same boat as a number of bottom four sides including the Suns, but massive wins over Essendon (57 points) and now the Suns has blasted the Bulldogs percentage up to 121.2, and with the faintest chance of finals. While everything would need to go right, the Dogs have already been preparing for their own finals campaign in the last four weeks of the season.

“We’ve got a four-round focus so we started last week and that was almost our qualifying final, today was our elimination final,” Hyett said. “We think that if we can continue to get better and play the style of game and our method that we’ve been working on, we’ll win games, and that’s all we’re asking.

“To turn up and play our style and that gives us the best opportunity to win games and things take care of themselves. “We were really deliberate to frame this as our finals series, the last four rounds, and I think it’s a good way of putting a little bit more pressure on the players and hopefully that holds them in good stead down the track.”

The Western Bulldogs finish off their regular season with a home clash at Mars Stadium against Geelong next Sunday, before facing St Kilda at RSEA Park the following Sunday.