THE Western Bulldogs were a nervous lot during the final hectic moments of last Sunday's thrilling tie with Richmond, but maybe no more so than the following day in the rooms at Whitten Oval.

It's Monday afternoon, getting towards the end of the Bulldogs' post-match review day, a marathon session of game assessment, video scrutiny, feedback, team discussions, leadership work and, for the coaches, a mind-boggling number of meetings to which The Age has been allowed full access.

It's a glut of information to take in for everyone. But now it's time for "The Dice", a player-initiated fundraiser for the end-of-season trip, and compelling motivation not to turn up late for a physio session or even leave rubbish lying around the changeroom.

Just ask young draftee Callan Ward. A couple of weeks back, after a minor misdemeanour, he was dobbed in by his teammates to take a spin of the oversized cube with the dots painted on it, half-a-dozen different forms of punishment awaiting.

Ward opted not to pay the $100 "get out" fee. His "reward" was to have to stand on the corner of Barkly and Gordon streets for half-an-hour wearing the club's "Woofa" mascot suit (without the head) and wave to the passing traffic.

Today's victims — Adam Cooney, Josh Hill and youngsters John Shaw and Guy O'Keefe — will be spared the same level of embarrassment, particularly once Hill decides to hand over the money rather than be forced to run two laps of the indoor training facility naked.

That's the light relief in a day every bit as gruelling, albeit in a different manner, as was the previous afternoon at Telstra Dome. In fact, for senior coach Rodney Eade and his assistants, there hasn't been a break.

They left the Dome early on Sunday evening and headed home to catch a bit of the late game between this week's opponent, West Coast, and Port Adelaide. The Eagles' defeat duly noted, it was straight into homework, their draw with the Tigers having already been loaded on their laptop computers for dissection.

Eade, midfield coach Leon Cameron, forward coach Wayne Campbell and defensive coach Peter Dean ran through the four quarters all over again, picking out the "edits" they intended showing the troops the next day.

It's about a four-hour job and meant a very late finish, but by 8.30am on Monday, they're back at the Kennel, ready to go.

Eade is at his desk, poring over the game once more, one from which he knows his team was probably lucky to escape with two match points. Then again, maybe not, once Tiger Matthew Richardson's controversial mark taken well behind the goal is viewed again. A two-goal turnaround, says Eade.

"Our pressure wasn't as good, we missed some tackles," he reflects. "We didn't move the ball quickly enough, we were a lot more stagnant than we have been."

With debate bubbling about the legitimacy of full-back Brian Lake's hamstring injury, which prevented him taking that critical final shot at goal, Will Minson successfully stepping in, there's public musing about how the defender will handle the inevitable media doorstop when he has his injury assessed. Perhaps Lake should blame his alter ego, Brian Harris. It's a handy fallback, the name change.

NOW it's time for the weekly player-rating meeting. Cameron and Dean troop into Eade's office. Campbell has been excused this one, his wife Sarah having delivered the couple's first child, Molly, the previous Thursday.

There's four areas to be scored for each player: competitiveness; run and energy; team ethic; and preparation. At the same time, the players are ranking themselves, the scores to be compared at this afternoon's Leading Teams meeting.

The roll call begins, Eade writing the scores. Addison. Akermanis. Boyd. "I was a bit hard on him," Eade 'fesses up. Cooney. "Seemed to rise when we were in trouble."

Cross. "Jeez he works hard, doesn't he." Eade says. "Crossy was Crossy," adds Cameron. "Just keeps on keeping on." Eagleton. Giansiracusa. Gilbee. There's positives and some negatives.

Griffen. "The effort was there, but they were right on to him, the polish wasn't there," says Cameron. Then the "Hs", Hahn, Harbrow, Hargrave, Hill and Hudson. Then the skipper, Brad Johnson. "Would have kicked five if he hadn't got injured," says Eade.

Lake. Minson, Morris, Murphy. "Terrific in the last quarter," says Eade. Welsh, whose five behinds showed unusual inaccuracy. "He's a superstar if he kicks 'em," Dean philosophises. Cameron Wight is last. "OK, wasn't he?" asks Eade. "Good defensive game, spoiled Polak pretty well."

Ratings done, the coaching panel pores over the statistics and makes some observations.

Defensive pressure was down, they agree. Cameron has marked one video edit to show the playing group later. "They (Richmond) take uncontested mark, uncontested mark, uncontested mark, and get a goal."

The meeting wraps up after about half-an-hour. Now the players will start filing into the offices of their particular line coaches to go over the edits of their own games. Defender Dale Morris sits alongside Dean at the laptop. Next door, midfielder Daniel Cross is seated with Cameron.

"Down the line, that's all you had," Cameron tells the engine room stalwart. Next clip shows Cross winning the ball and fishing out a diving handball to Ryan Hargrave. "Great stuff, mate. Good hands." Next. "That's good. You looked to go backwards, no one there."

After a while, Cameron, Campbell, Dean and team manager Mark "Klippo" Kimpton head off for a quick bite. But Eade will have to do takeaway. He's locked up in heavy discussion at the medical meeting.

The coach, doctor Gary Zimmerman, fitness head Cameron Falloon and physio Simon Macauley go over the casualty list.

From yesterday, there's Lake and Johnson. Lake will have scans during the afternoon on that hamstring. Johnson should be OK. And the best news is the likely return of ageless centreman Scott West, badly missed this past fortnight.

Those who have been injured are on the return with Williamstown in the VFL. Tom Williams and Andrejs Everitt are getting closer. Training schedules for those less than 100% are negotiated.

THE day's most potentially confronting session is with performance-improvement company Leading Teams, recognised as a key player in Geelong's success last year. They help facilitate club leadership groups and, generally, player empowerment. At a club with more than its share of quieter, introverted types, it's been an important addition.

Former Geelong player Michael Lenaghan oversees the session, the playing list standing around a whiteboard that has those ratings determined earlier, one column the coaches' scores, the other the players'.

First, Jason Akermanis steps up to warn his teammates of questions they might have to field about an impending media report on last year's much-publicised allegations of performance-enhancing drugs involving West Coast's Michael Braun. Saturday night will be the first time the pair have come face to face on a football field since.

Lenaghan leads the discussion, singling out discrepancies in the ratings. Scott Welsh has been particularly hard on himself after his inaccurate five behinds. "I didn't think I helped the team," he says.

But the coaches don't agree. "The only thing we thought was that you got too down on yourself," says Campbell. "This isn't about the end result," Cameron reassures him, "it's about how you go about it."

Veteran West, who watched the Richmond game from the coach's box, has an observation about the "preparation" marks. "It's interesting there's lots of sixes and sevens there (from players)," he says. "The last month there's been more eights and nines. Did we do something different we weren't happy with?"

Lenaghan chips in. "What was good? What needs to be rewarded?" Lindsay Gilbee responds. "That we didn't give up. There didn't seem any hope we could draw the game with the time left, but we played it right out."

NATHAN Eagleton agrees. "There was still massive belief out there. It's the first time we've been in a situation like that where we've been able to do something about it. No matter the situation, we can kick goals in a hurry."

"We've got to focus on the process, not the result," says Matthew Boyd, one of the leadership group.

Lenaghan asks the list to split up into their line groups for 10 minutes. "I want you to ask the question: 'Can I give feedback to anyone?' 'How are we going over the first five weeks as a team?', then 'What's the next step for us?' Then report back."

When they do, the message is uniformly positive. Mitch Hahn says the forwards have committed to improving zoning on kick-ins and to continuing to give each other direction.

At about 3pm, it's team meeting time, Eade and the assistants ready to go through those edits with the players. "Good change of direction here," he says after one clip. Then praise for Will Minson, who hacks the ball off the ground quickly at a centre bounce, Adam Cooney pouncing for a great goal.

It's not all praise. "Quick hands, Will, didn't take the first option." And to Wight: "Don't think too much, just give the first option."

Cameron and Dean take their turn. "Gilbs, you lost touch with him there." "Great defence Crossy." "Mitch, you had to nail that tackle." Says Dean: "The defensive pressure from the forwards was OK, we need constant pressure."

Eade finishes this half-hour-long meeting with some advice. "We've won four-and-a-half out of five, we're three games clear of ninth. It's an enormous advantage. But we cannot afford to take the foot off the pedal against any team. You just can't do that in this competition, and you've got to learn that.

"It struck me on the whiteboard, the players' marks were too far down on what the coaches had. Don't play games in your mind, don't second guess what we're after. You end up dancing at shadows. If there's a problem, we'll talk to you about it."

The players break up again for another meeting with their line coaches. That will be about it for their day, save for that all-important rolling of the dice. Not so the coaches. There's a football operations meeting on at 4pm and, at 5pm, a final match-committee discussion.

THE review is done, the Richmond game fully dissected. Now it's on to this week. A new set of name tags are produced for the magnetic board. These ones are blue and gold, and carry the names of a new set of opponents, from West Coast.

A new set of meetings, discussions, debates and analysis is about to begin. For Eade and co it can be as draining mentally as games are physically taxing on their players.

But the plotting and planning is a constant rush of adrenalin. And as outside the dice is being rolled, the senior coach and his assistants at least know they're not faced with the prospect of having to stand on a busy intersection wearing a bulldog suit.