Liberatore hurt as Bulldogs’ finals hopes cop costly blow in Tassie

And the Bulldogs’ woes could be compounded by the potential loss of tough midfielder Tom Liberatore as they look to win their last two games to sneak into the top eight.

The Bulldogs surged late with the last three goals, but couldn’t find the knockout blow in the last two minutes to slip to 11-10 for the season.

They will be in either eighth or ninth spot at the end of this round, depending on Sunday’s other results, with matches against West Coast (home) and the Cats in Geelong to finish the season.

A lethargic third quarter, where Hawthorn kicked two unanswered goals kicking into the win while keeping the Bulldogs goalless, proved decisive.

The Hawks built a 21-point lead with the first three goals of the final term, but had to hold on grimly to back up last week’s upset of Collingwood with another major scalp.

The Bulldogs’ finals hopes are now in serious jeopardy after finding themselves on the wrong side of a thriller yet again.

It follows a two point loss to the Swans in Sydney in round 18, and a five-point loss to the Giants at Ballarat in round 20.

“We’ve lost three games in the last six or so by under a goal. Two of those we’ve lost key position players and we haven’t been able to stablise too well, but hung in there,” Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said.

“We came again when the game looked almost lost, which is a positive, but throughout the course of the game we weren’t doing enough.

“We had a really stale period after half time where we couldn’t create any ball movement, we couldn’t get the ball.

“They (Hawthorn) won it at the coal face and by and large our backs held on pretty well but we just couldn’t create any opportunities.

“But you give credit to the Hawks for how they played the game, and some of their individuals who were really influential.”

Beveridge said they won’t take any chances with Liberatore, who was kept quiet by Hawks tagger Finn Maginness before he exited the game midway through the second quarter.

He seems highly unlikely to play the lowly Eagles, but the Bulldogs will be desperate to get their best contested possession player back before what could be a must-win game at Geelong.

“He’ll go into concussion protocols and there’ll be an update during the week,” Beveridge said.

“He seems OK, but as always we’ll take precautions and take a conservative approach with him.

“The simple look at the game was they broke too many of our tackles, those disputed ball situations they won a lot more than us.

“You think we could have been so much better in a lot of areas, but you also think Hawthorn are improving. We knew it was going to be a difficult task, and we fell short.”

Originally published as Liberatore hurt as Bulldogs’ finals hopes cop costly blow in Tassie