THE WESTERN Bulldogs are heading into finals in scintillating form and coach Luke Beveridge believes his side will be hard to beat this September.
The Bulldogs secured a finals berth with a 34-point win over Adelaide on Sunday, which was the club's eighth win from their past 11 games.
While Beveridge was reluctant to draw parallels to their 2016 premiership season – when the Dogs also finished seventh but won three more games – he said his side was capable of causing serious damage during finals.
Taylor Duryea takes a strong mark. Picture: AFL Photos
He noted the Dogs have recorded wins this season against every other finals team except Collingwood and West Coast.
"What we've got in our favour is the fact that we've played most of the teams in the eight in the back end of the year," Beveridge said.
"We've got a good idea of our capabilities on any certain day against quite a few of them … so that belief will be there, we know that we're capable.
"We're not limping into this finals series, we're going in with a head of steam … and I think we're going to be hard to beat."
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But Beveridge admitted his side's recent hot form meant little if they weren't able to bring it into September.
"We talk about creating the opportunity and the season is in two stages," Beveridge said.
"It's a whole new ball game once finals come. We're in there and who knows what can happen."
The Dogs will head into their interstate elimination final clash with Greater Western Sydney off the back of a compressive 61-point win over the Giants only one week ago.
The Giants were missing a host of stars that day – including newly crowned Coleman medallist Jeremy Cameron – and Beveridge said he was expecting a much different contest this time around.
"Things will change and they'll have a different mindset you'd think, and they'll definitely have probably half a dozen or so different players," he said.
"You'd imagine they'd come with some venom, it's a final. We've got to produce an antidote and an even more deadly venom coming out of our quarters."
Beveridge confirmed it was season over for midfielder Mitch Wallis, but said Tom Liberatore and Caleb Daniel were a chance to feature in September if the Dogs went deep.
