Canberra - our new home away from home

[Marns]

http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/08/16/1155407864586.html

Dees, Dogs take AFL back to Canberra

August 16, 2006

The AFL will return to Canberra in 2007 with Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs today agreeing to bring home games to the nation's capital.

The announcement follows the decision by the Kangaroos to pull out of Canberra and move three home games to the Gold Coast next season.

Along with the two premiership games - one for each club - one pre-season NAB Cup match and one NAB regional challenge match will be played in Canberra.

AFL chief operating officer Ben Buckley said he was very pleased with the deal.

"This is great news for all football fans in the ACT," he said.

Western Bulldogs centre half forward Robert Murphy said the Bulldogs hoped to make Canberra a home away from home.

"Hopefully we can make it like a second or third home away from home," he said.

Murphy won't return to the field until 2007 after injuring his anterior cruciate ligament in the Bulldogs loss to Collingwood in late May.

AAP
On top of this, we'll play our last "home" game in Brisbane next year.

[goDees22]

booo oh well, probably better getting 12k there than 20k at the dome

[Deestroy]

I don't mind the deal because; it's closer to home than Brisbane and we will play at a neutral ground.

In fact it will be good providing:
*We don't have additional home games interstate in the future. 1 should be set at the absolute limit after next season.
*We play a low crowd pulling team who plays well against us here (Freo
*We no longer play a home game at the Telstra Dome.

[Supermercado]

I'm in. We're in no position to argue these things - so getting the game away from Brisbane is the best possible deal. Especially after I vowed never to set foot in the state of Queensland ever again after the '05 game there.

[CaptainDavey]

Anyone got any ideas to how far off are we til we can stand on our own two feet? So disappointed with the drop in membership this year but I reckon we should play at the G and NO WHERE ELSE, like a fortress, like Subi or AAMI but then again, they have more than 30k people rock up. I'm cool with the Canberra idea, we play quality there so I got no problems

[RoyalBlue]

That ground has 'home ground advantage', something so few Melbourne based teams enjoy these days.

By the way, we left the keys under the doormatt, let yourself in.

[boppa]

Anything that gets us away from Telstra Dome is fine by me. I'd rather Melb play 8 interstate games as long as they don't have to play at TD. What a joke that ground is.

[goal sneak]

I'd rather play in Siberia (Carberra) than Telstra Dome.