Adam Kingsley had no illusions about the dismal nature of his side’s performance against the Western Bulldogs on Thursday night, conceding that the 88-point thrashing was the worst of his tenure.

Now in the latter stages of his third year at the helm, the GWS head coach offered a blunt one-word reply when asked if it was the lowest point of his time in charge.

“Yes.”

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Kingsley pointed to his side’s struggles at the contest and in clearances, where they were soundly beaten by margins of -51 and -17.

“We got belted in the contest, plain and simple. (We were) -51 in the end, you can’t really compete when you’re getting belted like that,” he said.

“You’re always trying; the problem is, it’s never one thing that’s the issue while you’re losing contest. It’s usually a handful, if not more.

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“We were off tonight, I don’t know why. The Bulldogs were clearly playing for their season, and it felt like we weren’t. And so that’s disappointing from our perspective.

“They’ve been like that in the past from a number of times that we’ve played them. They’ve been a bit of a hump that we haven’t been able to get over the last couple of years.”

The loss was the Giants’ ninth in 10 matches against the Bulldogs, having only won once since the 2019 elimination final between the two sides. This was also comfortably GWS’ biggest loss to their modern-day rivals, surpassing their 61-point loss also in 2019.

Crucially too, it now leaves them right back in the logjam of teams fighting to stay in the top eight, after previously looking at an unlikely shot towards the top four.

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Sitting with 13 wins and three games remaining, there are no longer any certainties amid their September plans, as their Round 23 meet with Gold Coast looms now as potentially a do-or-die clash.

“We’ve got an opportunity to respond. I’m not overly concerned, I don’t think that’s us — and it hasn’t been us for a long period of time … we’ll move on pretty quickly … and try and produce against North Melbourne next week,” Kingsley added

“The way that we played with the ball wasn’t our normal brand, I think that was pretty obvious. The Bulldogs did a great job at defending that, and we weren’t really bold enough.

“It happens. We don’t want it to happen, and certainly not the way that it did happen tonight — but it does.”

Souring the club’s biggest loss since the 2019 Grand Final are the injuries to forward Jesse Hogan (foot) and Toby McMullin (syndesmosis), with neither player seeing out the clash.

The Giants will welcome back captain Toby Greene for next Sunday afternoon’s clash with North Melbourne in Canberra, while key cogs Jack Buckley and Josh Kelly are expected to miss the remainder of the home-and-away season with calf injuries out of last week’s win over Sydney.