Western Bulldogs captain Bob Murphy has denied his teammates are suffering a premiership letdown, saying the Dogs' best football is still as good as anyone's and that player rotations were part of having a strong list.
Murphy conceded that stars such as Tom Liberatore had been down on form, but said he had been suffering from a concussion and backed him to bounce back.
"I think with the players being dropped, I think a lot of sides will say 'oh, we've got great depth' but we hang our hat on that," Murphy said on SEN radio when asked about eight premiership players being dropped so far this year. Zaine Cordy, Toby Mclean, Fletcher Roberts, Caleb Daniel, Tory Dickson, Shane Biggs and Clay Smith are the players have been dropped along with Liberatore.
"We don't have many stars but our list runs pretty deep. So I'm not so surprised that we have whipped through a few changes, but we are still really young. We've got a few really old, but our list is really young. So a guy like Libba, he is still, he is 24 I think, and he has gone through a flat patch. So I don't necessarily buy into the 'oh, that's because of last year'."
Murphy said the suggestion that Liberatore had not been working as hard on his fitness was unexpected.
"That caught me by surprise, the 'he wasn't fit enough'. He might not have come back in absolutely tip-top nick, but by this stage I would have thought that he was fit enough."
The skipper also said the football wisdom about the reigning premiers turning from hunter to hunted, was true, and difficult to overcome.
"It's a hard one because if we are talking about last year it has probably affected different players in different ways. So for me to pass comment, it is dangerous ... Before the season started I remember at the captain's day I was asked about 15 times 'how is it going to be, to be the hunted?' It was all about the hunted. And what that essentially means is that every week you probably get the best of each side. They come ready for a proper fight and we've had that this year.
"Have a look at the weekend, the Cats have been down for a little while and they were always going to be fired up and they played some of their best footy for the year and that's been a bit of a trend for the year. But that's not something that we shy away from, that's what gets us out of bed every day to try and get better.
"Some weeks we've stood up to that better than others, but I think the frustration for us, and probably a lot of sides, our best has been pretty good but the gap between our best and our not so good, we have kind of seen in game most weeks."
Murphy said he was particularly flat after the Geelong game because he felt the Dogs were in a strong position to win the game having struggled early.
"It was probably our best footy for the year. Third quarter, I was really excited about the last quarter and that we could get over the top of them. I was really flat after the game because of that three-quarter-time thought. Not ... 'we're home', but we finally got it to click and it left us just as quickly - that was the really disappointing bit.
"It's the balance. I still think we are one of the best sides in the comp because we show up every week and while we have little [bad] patches, we play it and we play it right to the line. Our best is as good as anyone's, but we are built with that inherent wariness that we are five and four and we have got a lot of work to do. We need to start winning some games."
