AS MUCH as football is a walking, talking, one-week-at-a-time cliche, the Western Bulldogs played like a team with its mind elsewhere yesterday. About 75 kilometres away, to be precise, straight down the Princes Highway.

The Bulldogs duly saluted by five goals, but gave themselves much food for thought in a week that will end with the greatest challenge in modern football — Geelong at Geelong.

As midfielder Matthew Boyd noted: "Sometimes you can be happier with the way you played when you lose. It was pretty disappointing."

The first steps to redemption were taken within minutes of the final siren, in a brief team meeting at which it was pointed out to Boyd and his mates that they had been bettered in hard-ball gets, loose-ball gets, pretty much all of the game's key indicators, and were unusually sloppy when they had the football.

Coach Rodney Eade called it uncharacteristic, and will be hoping for a swift return to type.

Boyd said: "Our contested footy is something we pride ourselves on this year, (and) it's been pretty good up until a couple of weeks ago. It's just dropped away, and we've really got to get that back up and going."

Boyd, at least, could be excused here. More than a third of his 33 touches were hard-won in a duel with Demon Nathan Jones.

Daniel Cross was similarly ferocious in-close in a typically passionate 100th game, but with Adam Cooney well held by Lynden Dunn and Ryan Griffen on compassionate leave, something was palpably missing. Boyd called it zip.

The Demons didn't have enough men to match Cameron Bruce's industry or they might have scored a second upset to sit alongside round 14's toppling of the Brisbane Lions.

With a forward line missing Scott Welsh, and Mitch Hahn subdued, it took interventions of class rarely seen on a gloomy afternoon to shake free.

These came from predictable sources: Daniel Giansiracusa and Jason Akermanis nabbing two each in a 10-minute, third-quarter burst that briefly enlivened proceedings.

Each benefited from Robert Murphy's squeaky-clean hands.

Other plusses were the exciting efforts of Jarrod Harbrow and Josh Hill, who both know that spots in this rising team are hotly contested; another shutdown by Ryan Hargrave, this time on Matthew Bate; and Lindsay Gilbee's clinical use of the ball off half-back on a day when the ability to hit a target was in short supply.

Boyd said that while some Bulldogs still harboured a mindset to get in and get the ball, there were others sitting on their heels waiting for service. Clearly, it will not do against the Cats.

The Dogs were away within 38 seconds of the first bounce, Cooney surging out of the middle and hacking a left-footer forward that somehow found Hahn.

But there the excitement ended, with subsequent interest confined to guessing who would get the free kick in virtually every one-on-one marking contest.

The Demons were even more wasteful by foot. At one stage, Jones hit Farren Ray on the chest when he had three more recommended targets to choose from, yet they were within 14 points when Brad Green's second opened the second half.

Even so, it seemed the question was not so much whether they were going well enough to pinch it, but if the Dogs were so off their dinner that they might throw it away.

But Will Minson goaled from another mysterious free, and when Murphy twice found Giansiracusa within a minute, the margin was beyond five goals and the result beyond dispute.

For a time, things even became interesting enough for Akermanis to get involved. And while Paul Wheatley landed a kick-out in the centre circle (in the arms of a Bulldog); Michael Newton finally broke a sequence of six unanswered Dog goals; and Brad Miller finished the game with his team's last three majors, the last quarter would not have been out of place lurching drunkenly in a dark nightclub corner either.

It was that sort of day. The challenge for the Dogs is to recapture the clarity of sobriety by Saturday.

W BULLDOGS 3.2 7.4 12.7 14.11 (95)
MELBOURNE 1.0 4.2 5.6 9.10 (64)

GOALS Western Bulldogs: Akermanis 3, Minson 3, Hahn 2, Eagleton 2, Giansiracusa 2, Cross, Harbrow. Melbourne: Miller 3, Green 2, Buckley, Dunn, C Johnson, Newton.

BEST Western Bulldogs: Boyd, Cross, Hargrave, Gilbee, Hill, Harbrow, Murphy. Melbourne: Bruce, Dunn, C Johnson, Wheatley, Martin, Green.

INJURIES Western Bulldogs: Welsh (back) replaced in selected side by Wight.

UMPIRES Farmer, McLaren, Keating.

CROWD 27,446 at Telstra Dome.

TALKING POINT It seemed a fairly uninspiring effort by the Bulldogs against a team that came into the game bottom of the ladder. Clearly the Doggies will need to be better to take it up to Geelong next Saturday. Were they already focused on that game?

THE UPSHOT With Sydney losing, the Bulldogs look certain to claim a top-three spot on the final ladder, which, if Geelong and Hawthorn take the other two, means a home final. Melbourne worked hard and was competitive, but is still in a long tunnel with only a pin-prick of light in sight.

HOT AND COLD Hot was Paul Wheatley, who wins the Malcolm Blight "save the torpedo" award with a kick-in in the last quarter that landed in the centre circle (with Doggie Dylan Addison, unfortunately). Cold, or at least cool, were several key Dogs, including Adam Cooney, Mitch Hahn and even Brad Johnson.