Kane Cornes has defended his stance on Luke Beveridge, after penning an article for The Age on Thursday suggesting the coach should be moved on.
A day later, the Bulldogs smashed St Kilda by 10 goals, bouncing back into form.
Cornes however sees the win as further vindication that this team, which has not finished higher than eighth since 2021, is capable of far more than they have shown.
“No, I think it solidified the statement that this team is capable of big things. You know what we’re not going to read this week? Articles about the Bulldogs’ list not being as good as people have said it is – it is a stacked list,” Cornes told SEN Breakfast.
“I would have Brisbane ahead on talent, I’d have the Bulldogs closely behind and top four on talent and the tools at their disposal and we saw it last night and we see it sporadically throughout the year.
“It’s amazing when you actually play Bailey Dale – how was his game? – Jack Macrae too. It’s amazing when you play your good players. I think the criticism is fair. I just think if a defensively minded coach with a game plan that he truly believes in, I think you’d get stunning results with this squad.
“I think they’re capable of big things, but they haven’t wanted to defend and I think that goes back to the coach.
“I think their list is as good as Carlton’s. If you line them up, Carlton has some role players in their team and they’ve got some real injury problems, I think the Dogs have more talent than the Blues.”
Cornes believes selection calls like leaving Jack Macrae, Caleb Daniel and Bailey Dale out of the starting 22 sums up his frustrations with Beveridge.
“Having Bailey Dale as sub for one week and playing Oskar Baker and Lachie Bramble straight back in, is that challenging him?” he added.
“Could they have won last week and could they be in a better position if he had treated these highly regarded, highly paid players – from what I’d seen from Bailey Dale, there’s no way he deserved to be sub over some others in that team.
“If you’ve got Oskar Baker versus Bailey Dale and you’re picking a team to win a game against an Essendon team smashed with injury and you go with Baker and he kicks it out on the full three times and Dale is standing there as sub and the next week he comes in and he’s best on ground, I’m going, you probably got this wrong.
“I think he was trying to make a statement towards the list management team that this team isn’t as good as what the club sees it.
“This team is absolutely as good as the club sees it. How can you not watch it and see they’ve dismantled St Kilda by 10 goals, and think they’re not capable of winning the flag this year.”
The Dogs are now 3-3 with a percentage of 123 after six games. They’ll head west to take on Fremantle in Round 7 before hosting Hawthorn in Round 8.
