Widely-considered one of the AFL's most astute coaches, Rodney Eade admits he was caught out this season by the implications of their decimated defensive unit.

The Bulldogs were touted as finals certainties in 2011, some pundits even predicting the side would improve on their run of three successive preliminary final appearances.

However that challenge came unstuck early on with a run of three losses, and then another four starting from round nine, when they suffered a 127-point shellacking by West Coast.

Eade, who started his senior AFL coaching career with Sydney in 1996, admitted he'd been tactically caught on the hop.

"I probably didn't give due credit to what effect our defence had on movement of the ball and getting the ball into our forward line," Eade said when asked if he'd been tactically challenged this season.

"We just didn't get enough inside 50s."

The coach said his fractured back six had contributed to the Bulldogs' failure to match other sides.

Jarrod Harbrow went to Gold Coast, Ryan Hargrave only managed a handful of games after foot surgery, while Tom Williams also suffered an ongoing foot problem.

Dual All-Australian fullback Brian Lake was drastically out of sorts before suffering a season-ending knee injury and Lindsay Gilbee's form slump saw him dumped to the VFL.

"Harbrow going, Hargrave out, Lake out, Gilbee struggling, we really did struggle," Eade said.

"We played very conservatively and that didn't help us form the press.

"It wasn't really until we had a couple of big beltings that you think, 'We've got to have a reasonable overhaul of what we're doing'."

Eade said there had been significant improvements since the round-13 win over Adelaide.

"I think since when we played Adelaide, our time inside forward 50 and our pressure inside forward 50 is about fifth or sixth in the competition so I think that's been changed," he said.

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