Matthew Knights is under no illusions about the style of play the Western Bulldogs will bring to Etihad Stadium on Friday night when they take on his young Bombers side.
Knights said he believes the game will be up-tempo and free flowing, which suits his side, but to seal a victory they will need to match the superb defensive pressure of the Dogs.
“The challenges are coming thick and fast at the moment,"" he said.
""Going to Sydney last week playing such a tough, strong side with such a successful history was a big challenge.
“But looking six days ahead you have a team like the Western Bulldogs to confront, it’s really exciting again for our group to come up against a quality side playing Friday night football.
“We will go in with a good attitude and try to do the best we can. If you look across the Bulldogs line up, they have class on every line and we are going to have to step up again and go hard.
“Etihad Stadium combined with the nature of the two teams lends itself to a fairly quick and up-tempo game. One of the reasons the Western Bulldogs are in the position they are in is because they have defensively ramped their season up; they create opportunities out of their defence.
“We know that they will come out and work pretty hard but so will we. I don’t think it will be an all attacking game, I think there will be a mindset of both teams to tackle hard and pressure hard too.”
To watch the Knight media conference from 11:30am click here.
Knights said he is not worrying about performances in the past against the Bulldogs where his side has fallen short.
“We’ve had a couple of games against them in the past where we were in the game at three quarter time but they got us late and walked away with the victory. We were in those games but didn’t finish the job,” he said.
“But in saying that we are a young group, we don’t really have that attitude of what happened last time, we have had such a turnover of players since then.
“We are a fresh group and we will just attack the contest and treat every game on its merit. We are just looking to see what we can do now and what we can do to be a better team in the future.”
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Whilst Knights is optimistic about the road ahead for the Bombers, he believes his side needs to continue to improve and must endeavour to stay ahead of the ledger, which currently sits at eight wins and losses.
“Every week you play against a side that has a good football program and wants to win, some weeks we will play at a really high level and others weeks they will just be better then you,” he said.
“Since the mid season break we have won three out of four, and have gained about 10% in percentage.
“We just need to keep pushing hard and finish the year as best we can – I’m not sure where that will end up- we certainly have our aims but we are enjoying our football and our players seem to be embracing what we are endeavouring to put in place in the club.”
