Western Bulldogs coach Peter Rohde had his runners working overtime early in the third term of their AFL match against Carlton at Optus Oval.

The Blues had kicked the first two goals of the second half and led by 11 points in a tight, physical match.

The message going out to the Bulldogs was simple - tackle more and tackle harder.

A six-goal barrage for the rest of the quarter set up their 25-point win, 16.8 (104) to 12.7 (79), and Carlton coach Denis Pagan agreed the Bulldogs' increased tackling was a key to the result.

"We turned the game in the third quarter when we started to tackle, we didn't tackle very well early in the match," Rohde said.

"In the last quarter-and-a-half, we tackled really well."

Rohde thought it would be "over-simplifying" to put their third win of the season down to more accurate goal-kicking.

After spraying 10.22 last week in the narrow loss to Richmond, the Bulldogs were much more fluent on Sunday.

But two more turning points were the injuries to Carlton ruckman Barnaby French, who was in hospital after a second-quarter back injury, and Darren Hulme (groin).

French's injury freed Bulldogs ruckman Luke Darcy to wreak havoc at the bounces and in attack.

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