EACH week coaches talk of, well actually about nearly everything, but in this instance of how each match is a contest within itself and how four points are equal no matter how they are achieved and against whom. That kind of stuff.

Trite sport sayings about what matters is just what is in the book and other such inanities are invented to avoid disrespect for an opponent and to keep players level. Occasionally they even patronisingly dismiss the notion of eight-point games. But it is bunkum.

Rodney Eade knows it. He said so yesterday. It might have been convenient for him to dismiss the last two weeks' losses (against Geelong and Carlton) on the basis that this was the game they had been setting for but there is no doubt that it was at least partly true. This was a game of enormous consequence to the Dogs in a range of ways.

First it stretched the gap between them and the Swans and thus made a certainty of their finishing position and opponent in the first round of the finals.

This also meant that the result for the Dogs in the next four games becomes less critical — so proving the point games are not all made equal.

But as importantly for the Dogs was the opponent and the very fact of winning. The Bulldogs had slid out of last season in regrettable fashion so this win staunched any similar bleeding of games.

But the most compelling aspect of the wins were these — they have loaded heavily in training in recent weeks to be able to taper into peak fitness and running in the finals so to be able to at first come back into the game and then to hold out in the final quarter will be some satisfaction that they have not run themselves into the ground.

Second, they defeated Sydney, albeit a depleted one, which is significant for they play a style of game they will confront more readily in September, if played to a higher standard. The Dogs also, and perhaps most importantly of all, ceded a lead in the opening term and overcame it.

The Bulldogs were flat-footed and flattened in the opening quarter, stunned by the Swans who booted four goals in the opening six minutes before the Dogs had even really had a possession let alone managed to take the ball inside 50.

They were beaten comprehensively at the centre breaks where Jarrad McVeigh left Adam Cooney in his wake streaming from the middle and having a hand in the first three goals before Daniel Cross was shifted to him.

"It was like we had stage fright," was how Rodney Eade summed up the first term.

Which was odd given how the side had set itself for this game.

If this was a product of over-anticipation of one game ahead of others it is a troubling idea knowing now a month out that they will enter a qualifying final in week one against Hawthorn.

Once they settled and Minson began to get more hand on the ball in the ruck and the midfield match-ups settled better the Dogs earned more of it from the middle, predominantly through the bullocking will of Mitch Hahn.

The Dogs' fix-it guy Hahn played variously in each line of the field wherever needed and ensured the spot-fires that arose were extinguished.

There was no one more influential in the second term when the Bulldogs responded to the missed start to boot nine unanswered goals through from late in the first term to the end of the second.

Hahn's force of will midway through the term when he dived across Darren Jolly's boot to smother then to get first hands on the ball from the next ball up to feed out to Jason Akermanis to snap at goal was indicative of his intent to impose himself on the game.

Akermanis had begun the game in defence in a back pocket, a decision Eade said was based on his poor form of recent weeks and a standard tactic of putting a player behind the ball in order to find it.

The Dogs were content the move worked in bringing Aka back into the play even if he didn't finish with a goal.

While not a cause and effect of Akermanis' early absence the Dogs forward line was the far more effective.

Robert Murphy led deep and hard while Brad Johnson edged closer to form. Scott Welsh however was the man to take his chances.

The Swans, having begun so brightly, found themselves by the final term trailing by 33 points at one stage before McVeigh again intervened.

Chris Judd aside, few midfielders in the game kick bags of goals playing exclusively out of the middle any more, let alone six. It was fortunate for the Swans struggled before goal. Barry Hall was back — although a forearm to Lindsay Gilbee's head on the third quarter might see him on the bench or the psychiatrist's couch again — and looked the better as the game wore on.

W BULLDOGS 3.2 11.4 13.7 17.11 (113)
SYDNEY 5.3 6.6 9.11 14.13 (97)

GOALS Western Bulldogs: Welsh 5, Johnson 4, Boyd, Cooney, Giansiracusa, Gilbee, Hahn, Harbrow, Hargrave, Hill. Sydney: McVeigh 6, Hall 3, J Bolton, Brennan, Jack, Richards, Veszpremi.

BEST Western Bulldogs: Hahn, Gilbee, Welsh, Johnson, Minson, Giansiracusa, Cross. Sydney: McVeigh, O'Keefe, J Bolton, Richards, Veszpremi.

INJURIES Sydney: Moore (calf) replaced in selected side by White.

UMPIRES McBurney, Nicholls, Chamberlain, Avon (emergency).

CROWD 13,551 at Manuka Oval.

THE UPSHOT The Dogs are now certainties to play Hawthorn in the qualifying final in the first week of the finals. While the Swans remain in a fight to hold onto fourth spot — although Paul Roos admit with their form they are miles from contention and finishing there would be meaningless given how they are playing.

TALKING POINT Will the plan to put Bulldogs players in cotton wool over the next month and promote players to give them some match exposure and fitness in readiness to play finals flirt with their form?

HOT AND COLD Mitch Hahn was superb, playing everywhere when needed he played on every line of the field and was outstanding. Scott Welsh's five goals and Brad Johnson's lesser output but significant contribution was as well as the Dogs have looked up forward for a long time. Even with Jason Akermanis having started in a back-pocket for his form having been poor.