{"id":21066,"date":"2025-07-25T12:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/21066\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T12:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:13:07","slug":"bulldogs-boost-finals-chances-as-forwards-fire-in-belting-of-bombers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/21066\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulldogs boost finals chances as forwards fire in belting of Bombers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__summary\">\n                The Bulldogs have run riot in an emphatic win over the Bombers\n            <\/p>\n<p>\n                            By Phoebe McWilliams at Marvel Stadium\n                            <\/p>\n<p>                                Sam Darcy and Aaron Naughton celebrate a goal during the Western Bulldogs&#8217; clash against Essendon in round 20, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n<p>THE WESTERN Bulldogs have boosted their finals chances with a 93-point thrashing of Essendon at Marvel Stadium on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>The Bulldogs made a fast start and never looked back on their way to an emphatic 22.11 (143) to 7.8 (50) victory.<\/p>\n<p>BOMBERS v BULLDOGS <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/afl\/matches\/7125\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Full match coverage and stats<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Aaron Naughton (seven goals) and Sam Darcy (six) took advantage against the injury-hit Bombers with big bags, while Marcus Bontempelli (35 disposals and two goals) starred.<\/p>\n<p>The Bulldogs improved to 11-8 to boost their finals chances, while the Bombers&#8217; struggles continued.<\/p>\n<p>Essendon captain Zach Merrett (30 disposals) worked hard for his side.<\/p>\n<p>More to come<\/p>\n<p>ESSENDON\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 2.2\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a02.5\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a04.6\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a07.8 (50) \u00a0<br \/>WESTERN BULLDOGS\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 6.5\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a010.5\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a017.7\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 22.11 (143) \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>GOALS<br \/>Essendon: Wright 2, McMahon 2, Perkins, Kako, Caddy<br \/>Western Bulldogs: Naughton 7, Darcy 6, West 3, Richards 2, Bontempelli 2, Sanders, Poulter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bulldogs have run riot in an emphatic win over the Bombers By Phoebe McWilliams at Marvel Stadium&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":["post-21066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}