Bulldogs young gun Darcy backed to fix wonky radar

SAM Darcy kicked 1.5 against Adelaide on Sunday, but the Western Bulldogs forward is being backed to fix his wobbles against North Melbourne this week.

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge doesn’t want Sam Darcy to go “overkill” on his goalkicking practice despite the forward’s wayward display against Adelaide on Sunday.

Darcy kicked 1.5 – and another that went out of bounds – as the Bulldogs slumped to a shock 39-point loss at Adelaide Oval that effectively killed off their top-four hopes.

The Bulldogs posted a wayward 9.18 for the match, although seven of those behinds were rushed.

Darcy’s only goal of the game came from three metres out in junk time.

The 21-year-old sprayed all six of his other shots on goal but was influential apart from that with 19 disposals, three contested marks and a game-high 11 score involvements.

Darcy entered the match with 27.16 to his name this year, and Beveridge isn’t worried about a one-off inaccurate display.

“I’d rather look at Sam’s really good stuff, the encouraging parts. And over the journey he’s been a pretty good set shot for goal,” Beveridge said.

“It’s got to be a balance of what you do there with set shots (at training), because you can get into a groove and you don’t need to practice that much.

“A lot of it is positive self talk. It’s definitely between the ears as much as your method.

“Sam’s usually been pretty good. He’ll obviously find a groove at training this week and look to establish that the following week.

“So it’s not necessarily overkill, doing too much now. It’s just get the balance right.”

Star forward Aaron Naughton was subbed off during the third term with just 0.1 and four disposals to his name.

Naughton appeared to injure his knee early in the game, but Beveridge played down any serious concerns.

“Just a bit ginger,” Beveridge said.

“He’s had a bit of a sore knee. He wasn’t necessarily covering the ground as well as he does.

“We needed to find a little bit more run, and Caleb (Daniel) can produce that.”

The seventh-placed Bulldogs (12-9) are now two wins adrift of the top four.

It means even wins over North Melbourne on Sunday and GWS the following week probably won’t be enough for them to earn a double finals chance.

Beveridge hinted he may make some changes to his side this week to freshen things up.

“It’s unusual for us to come in to a third week in a row and have no change at all in our team,” Beveridge said.

“Sometimes that (a sub-par display) is part of it. Does it need a refreshment? Maybe this is a week for it.”