Rodney Eade walked into his post-match media conference, looked at a Western Bulldogs-supporting journalist and asked: "did you punch a hole in the wall?"

The Bulldogs coach said he had mixed emotions after Friday night's one-point loss to Collingwood, but overall it was an opportunity lost.

Rather than move two games clear of Collingwood, the two sides share third place on the AFL ladder.

Adelaide will join them if, as expected, they beat Fremantle on Saturday night at AAMI Stadium.

For all their fight, when they recovered from a 41-point deficit late in the third quarter, the Bulldogs were well off their game in the first quarter.

They were down seven goals to one and made too many basic mistakes.

Still, they led several statistical categories at the end of the match and Eade felt they could quickly fix any problems that the match exposed.

"Probably, in the end, you're going to take more positives than negatives, because the negatives are rectifiable and probably rectifiable very quickly," Eade said.

"Against a top-four side, to go down by a point, where most of the indicators (we) were in front and we just didn't take our chances - we can get a lot of positives out of that."

Eade is nicknamed "Rocket" and he made it clear his team received one of those at half-time.

"They got a bit of a wake-up call," he said.

The Bulldogs started the third quarter with two goals, reducing the margin to 22 points.

But then a 'Dogs runner gave away a free kick by accidentally finding himself in the 50m zone at a kickout and Collingwood's Leon Davis kicked a brilliant goal despite clearly marking the ball outside the boundary line.

It was turning into that sort of night for the Bulldogs.

At three-quarter time, Eade told his team to keep the faith - and they did.

One of the sparks for their final-term revival was Robert Murphy, who had started in defence and went forward in the second half.

But again, Eade could not praise Murphy without noting one of the Bulldogs' best players had made some uncharacteristic errors.

"He was terrific ... but he's another one who missed some chances, he's normally a good kick," Eade said.

"He gave a forward line a bit of a spark, which was pleasing."

Eade said the 'Dogs had come into the Collingwood game a little sore, following the big win the previous weekend over Hawthorn.

After two six-day breaks, they have an eight-day rest before Essendon in round 16.

Then comes another massive game, when they play so-far unbeaten St Kilda on a Saturday night.

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