The Western Bulldogs are licking their wounds after yet another elimination final loss.

In 11 years under Luke Beveridge, the Bulldogs have lost six elimination finals, their latest coming at the hands of Adelaide to the tune of 22 points on Saturday night.

The Dogs were without superstar key forward Sam Darcy for most of the season after he ruptured his ACL in Round 6, while Matt Kennedy, Tom Liberatore and Oskar Baker all missed through injury.

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Then, in the warm-up, reliable defender Michael Sellwood was concussed after copping a ball to the head.

The Bulldogs trailed for most of the night but rallied to snatch the lead back early in the last quarter before conceding five of the last six goals thereafter.

Beveridge cut a dejected figure as he addressed his troops in the rooms post-match.

“This is some really powerful vision we’ve got here from Luke Beveridge,” Garry Lyon said on Fox Sports.

“Looks like they’re all just taking a moment to think about things.

“He will take the positive out of this. They need some personnel. I mean, they were one-out with Naughton in that front half. They had nearly 20 inside-50s (in the) first quarter and they kicked 1.7. So, they had good looks. I thought they prepared really well.”

Luke Beveridge addresses his troops after their elimination final loss. Credit: Channel 7

Channel 7 expert Kane Cornes said there are still a lot of positives.

“Well, Sam Darcy back (next year) helps. Like, he’s going to just be something else. So let’s just keep our fingers crossed that he returns in a big, big way next year,” he said.

“That’s the first part of it. Get everyone in your best players fit and healthy.

“The (Zak) Butters pursuit, they’ll get an answer on that I would think, if not this week, in the next week or two. So not a whole lot you can do with your planning until you get that assurance.

“But then just the the bottom few let them down tonight. There’s no doubt that the likes of (Sam) Davidson and (Josh) Dolan, (Will) Lewis at times, really hurt them.

“(Tim) English has has had a really rough year, so they’ve got a decision to make with Tim English and whether he remains at the club.

“Arthur Jones is out of contract, so they’re going to have to keep him. They have to keep him, so raise your offer to keep him. He deserves it and has been their most dangerous small forward. So that’s a real positive.

“And there are some positives out of this year. They’ve still got a really core group of good mids coming through and (Ryley) Sanders has improved.

“(Rhylee) West through the midfield has been important. So some positives, but they’re nowhere near good enough to be winning a premiership with with what we saw tonight.”

The Dogs’ prime movers Ed Richards (27 touches, two goals), Marcus Bontempelli (27) and Joel Freijah (24) were busy, as was Bailey Williams, while Jones and Lewis also kicked two goals apiece.

“We always feel like we fall short when we don’t win the whole thing,” Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said.

“(But) we have made some progress, we really have ... our players surprised us at times.”

Adelaide led 3.1 to 1.7 at quarter-time and stretched to a 12-point break early in the second term before the Bulldogs rallied with three goals in four minutes.

Ben Keays of the Crows celebrates a goal against Western Bulldogs with Alex Neal-Bullen. Credit: AAP

The spurt included a Jones strike after a dubious free kick that enraged the 51,370-strong pro-Crows crowd — their mood didn’t improve when the Dog blew them kisses after converting.

The visitors were six points ahead — their biggest lead of the game — but Adelaide responded with the next three goals for a 7.2 to 5.8 edge at halftime.

The Crows seemingly made a decisive move with two goals to none in the third term to create a 19-point buffer at the last change.

But the Dogs hit the front with three goals and two behinds, including an Aaron Naughton shot that hit the post.

The Naughton poster was followed by Adelaide’s game-breaking retort, with big guns Thilthorpe, Walker and Fogarty firing the Crows into the semi-finals.

Rankine, with a remarkable snap from a near-impossible angle, and Rachele then iced victory with late goals.

With AAP