“Stop being so unpredictable”: Jenkins’ message to the Dogs ahead of 2025

Former Adelaide forward Josh Jenkins has called on the Western Bulldogs to stop being so unpredictable in 2025.

While the Dogs have played finals in five of the last six seasons, they haven’t finished top four in any of those campaigns despite possessing one of the competition’s most talented lists.

The Dogs were again up and down in 2024, rescuing their season from a 3-5 win-loss record to win 11 of their last 15 home and away games to qualify for finals.

Jenkins thinks that no other side has a bigger gap between their best and worst and he called on the side to lift the floor of their poor days which could allow them to finish top four.

“For the Doggies, stop being so unpredictable,” Jenkins told SEN The Run Home.

“The difference between the Dogs’ best and worst is a canyon.”

“There's no team with a greater gap between their best and worst. Think about the game against Sydney late in the season … they played the Swans on a Sunday afternoon and completely tore them apart.

“But then they'd have some games against lesser opponents where you're just thinking, ‘What is this?’.

“They need to just try and level off their performance. Their good needs to stay good, but they need to bring up their bad games, try and pinch some of those and allow themselves a chance to finish top four.”

Jenkins thinks that one way Luke Beveridge can achieve this is by formulating a better ‘plan B’ if the side’s typical high-handball game isn’t clicking due to opposition pressure or inclement weather.

“Start developing a plan B for games where the high-handball game isn’t the game style to implement,” Jenkins said.

“That’s whether the opposition brings great pressure or the weather doesn’t allow … it’s a winter sport.

“I think they need to have a plan B where they change at quarter time and stop flicking it around … get some territory, kick it forward and accept that we want to play a bit of a territory game, let’s see that from them.”

Jenkins also called on the Dogs to keep faith with Ed Richards as a midfielder over moving him back to half-back in his Stop/Start/Keep assessment of the club.