Is our future bright?

[House_of_Dahl]

That being said Unless you have had your head in the sand we have had three pretty ordinary seasons, a captain walk, coach sacked and are looking down the barrel of a bottom 3 finish. There hasn't been much to be positive about let's be honest !

Meh Griff is old with a sore back and a bad attitude - and we ended up with Tom Boyd!!
Meh I liked Macca but Bevo sounds good
And we have another year's development into a huge group of incredibly talented kids

Every little thing, gonna be alright (ok may have been drinking this afternoon )

 

[VitalDread]

If we are really going to move forward to a brighter future. The first thing we need to do is stop deluding ourselves, and making more out of our achievements than is really there.

]Yes, our VFL side won the flag. Great, but let's add a bit of perspective. We beat Hawthorn's VFL affiliate team by a small margin despite the fact that they were both resting and nursing some key players for the AFL grand final. We on the other hand were able to have a few players in there that should have been playing in our AFL side had we been good enough to be playing at that time of year. Furthermore some of the key players in that victory have already left the club.

To top things off, for those members of the VFL flag team that are still around and hopefully have the ability to play in the AFL side, playing our so called 'game style' from last year will probably be considered a negative rather than a positive, because a) it was terrible and b) we now have a new coach who will hopefully change the way we play.

Let's stop being so thankful about the glass being half full and talking about how nice the liquid in the glass is, and start focus on filling it up.

a) Doens't matter what they field or rested players, our players still won the game regardless of x amount of super stars playing
b) incorrect, the only star players in that game that left are Young and Howard. and jones (inwhich only played well in 10mins of the ENTIRE GAME)... don't think they count
c)of course they should have been playing afl games but as development you play them in a winning side to help boost their confidences
d) The game style will apply in the vfl under the new coach fact that you didn't see that in my post about our game style NOT last year game style means you didn't read my post that well.

Look at the geelong side that won their flag a few years back a lot of those players should have been playing afl games but didn't to help boost themselves into the afl world and allow themselves to handle finals pressure which ultimately lead to winning AFL flags later

Let's stop being so negative

 

[JJHunter]

Meh Griff is old with a sore back and a bad attitude - and we ended up with Tom Boyd!!
Meh I liked Macca but Bevo sounds good
And we have another year's development into a huge group of incredibly talented kids

Every little thing, gonna be alright (ok may have been drinking this afternoon )

I sang that line as I read it.

Sadly if u look across the history of the afl the sides with the lowest games per player average have really battled. We have the second lowest avg of all sides and if you ignore everything else and just look to that fact we will battle. Of course you can defy history and I really hope we do but this fact and imo the list improvement of a number of sides around our mark last year will see us bottom 3 in 2015.

2016 may be a better story back to around the 6-9 win mark.

My opinion and hope I'm wrong

 

[Gmod23]

I think we are a bottom 6 side this coming year. We will get beaten up in the midfield and win 7-8 games.
Following year, we will finish 7th or higher. IF we get a good FA at the end of the year.

 

[Proffessor]

a) Doens't matter what they field or rested players, our players still won the game regardless of x amount of super stars playing
b) incorrect, the only star players in that game that left are Young and Howard. and jones (inwhich only played well in 10mins of the ENTIRE GAME)... don't think they count
c)of course they should have been playing afl games but as development you play them in a winning side to help boost their confidences
d) The game style will apply in the vfl under the new coach fact that you didn't see that in my post about our game style NOT last year game style means you didn't read my post that well.

Look at the geelong side that won their flag a few years back a lot of those players should have been playing afl games but didn't to help boost themselves into the afl world and allow themselves to handle finals pressure which ultimately lead to winning AFL flags later

Let's stop being so negative

I don't understand why you perceive my comments to be "so negative"? (My statements weren't incorrect either.)

Trying to look at things in a balanced way, to see the good and bad (or not so good if you prefer), shouldn't be considered as being 'negative'.
Haven't you learnt anything from the McCartney experience?
Only looking at the positives leads to disastrous results because you don't see the obvious problems and therefore you can't fix them.

We have been one of the worst performed teams in the league for the past three seasons and we have just lost a bunch of important experienced players to other teams. We have plenty of problems that need to be fixed. This is not to say that there aren't rays of hope, there are. As you know I think the departure of McCartney is a huge positive for the club.

But we need to recognise that the immediate outlook could be better, and that we have a lot of hard work ahead of us. Admitting this is the case isn't being negative it is being realistic.

 

[fargy]

I've been doing this all wrong! So to be balanced you have to be overly critical of everyone and everything? Is that what balanced is?

 

[Proffessor]

I've been doing this all wrong! So to be balanced you have to be overly critical of everyone and everything? Is that what balanced is?

If you are going to use the 2014 VFL premiership as a sign of a bright future, might I suggest that a balanced post could mention that half the team's grand final goals were kicked by players no longer on our list?

 

[Dav1d]

I believe with a more attacking game style our defense won't be under nearly as much pressure

there were a few games last season where we seemed to get an okay lead and then focus on defending that the rest of the game
basically..I am saying that 'the best defense is a good offense' & I do think that our forward line is definitely good enough to challenge most opposition teams defense

 

[Cori]

Forget balance. How about logic?

 

[TBOW]

If we are really going to move forward to a brighter future. The first thing we need to do is stop deluding ourselves, and making more out of our achievements than is really there.

]Yes, our VFL side won the flag. Great, but let's add a bit of perspective. We beat Hawthorn's VFL affiliate team by a small margin despite the fact that they were both resting and nursing some key players for the AFL grand final. We on the other hand were able to have a few players in there that should have been playing in our AFL side had we been good enough to be playing at that time of year. Furthermore some of the key players in that victory have already left the club.

To top things off, for those members of the VFL flag team that are still around and hopefully have the ability to play in the AFL side, playing our so called 'game style' from last year will probably be considered a negative rather than a positive, because a) it was terrible and b) we now have a new coach who will hopefully change the way we play.

Let's stop being so thankful about the glass being half full and talking about how nice the liquid in the glass is, and start focus on filling it up.

Your perspective is fine prof, but I think you're taking VD out of context a bit.

You're focusing on the on-field specifics of one game of football where VD is looking at the on & off field benefits of a whole season which only culminated in a premiership.

Regardless of the GF surely you can see the benefits of the stand alone vfl team?

 

[VitalDread]

Forget balance. How about logic?

Phh logic
The internet has no room for logic

 

[Roscoe_au]

Phh logic
The internet has no room for logic

I think that's a fact!

 

[Roscoe_au]

I know people are going on about how much experience we've lost, but this is simply a byproduct of a rebuild.

Cooney, Higgins and perhaps even Griffin (bearing in mind he has a bad back and could have had his career cut short in any case) will not be in our side the next time we're seriously contending. Better to start bringing all these boys up together.

 

[Roscoe_au]

Your perspective is fine prof, but I think you're taking VD out of context a bit.

You're focusing on the on-field specifics of one game of football where VD is looking at the on & off field benefits of a whole season which only culminated in a premiership.

Regardless of the GF surely you can see the benefits of the stand alone vfl team?

All those old blokes with tears in their eyes where I was sitting seemed to care about the GF. Come to think of it, the 2/3s of the crowd that wore red, white and blue also seemed to care.

Regardless of whether it's VFL, I'd bet my last dollar that every player at our club (seniors included) would have loved to have been part of it.

 

[timtamWB]

I know people are going on about how much experience we've lost, but this is simply a byproduct of a rebuild.

Cooney, Higgins and perhaps even Griffin (bearing in mind he has a bad back and could have had his career cut short in any case) will not be in our side the next time we're seriously contending. Better to start bringing all these boys up together.

Cooney, no. Griffen, maybe. Higgins, probably would have been. He's only 26.

 

[Gmod23]

Cooney, no. Griffen, maybe. Higgins, probably would have been. He's only 26.

IF Higgins was in our best 22, I can't see us contending for a premiership unless he took a major pay cut as those around him would have to be elite to make up for his finger pointing.

 

[Some Idiot]

There is some absolute drivel in here. Everyone thinks their own perspective is balanced, so please stop with the "I have the balanced perspective" claim and shitting on other people's opinions, because it is meaningless. You can go about things respectfully.

 

[Yojimbo]

IF Higgins was in our best 22, I can't see us contending for a premiership unless he took a major pay cut as those around him would have to be elite to make up for his finger pointing.

We still have Gia as our forward coach so our pointing skills and ability to
roll forward of the play should remain elite. Sometimes if forwards lack a
little leg speed they have to use blocks or run forward of the ball to
gain separation it looks great when it works, but they stand out like dogs
balls when it does not. They say Gary Abletts shoulder would have been
fine, but that was his pointing arm. So even the great ones do it, filling
in or picking up the more dangerous opponent position wise should be
team rules stuff really.

 

[Scenester]

I think that it was in this thread where I read someone say that Shaun Higgins is the 'worst number 7 in bulldogs history', but I can't find the post to quote now. But, with all due respect, the worst number allocation, probably of all time, by any club, maybe anywhere in the world, was to give number 3 (the bulldogs' most important number) to Andrejs Everitt .... for god's sake. I have no idea what they were thinking giving Everitt number 3. Giving 7 to Higgins was reasonable, in my opinion. I think we'd all agree that at the start of Higgins' career that we thought we'd found an absolute gun. Maybe they gave him 7 at a time when he was feeling discouraged due to all of his injuries, so they said 'have Dougie's and Westy's old number. We haven't lost faith in you and still believe you'll be a champion'. I think some people think that Higgins is soft, but I think it's normal, when you've had all the injuries that he's had - you lose all confidence in your body, so you're reluctant to go at one hundred percent. So, in my opinion, 7 for Higgins was reasonable - he could have been anything, given his amazing skills. But, 3 for Everitt .... seriously?

 

[cleveland]

IF Higgins was in our best 22, I can't see us contending for a premiership unless he took a major pay cut as those around him would have to be elite to make up for his finger pointing.

buy this man a cigar!!!

 

[cleveland]

I think that it was in this thread where I read someone say that Shaun Higgins is the 'worst number 7 in bulldogs history', but I can't find the post to quote now. But, with all due respect, the worst number allocation, probably of all time, by any club, maybe anywhere in the world, was to give number 3 (the bulldogs' most important number) to Andrejs Everitt .... for god's sake. I have no idea what they were thinking giving Everitt number 3. Giving 7 to Higgins was reasonable, in my opinion. I think we'd all agree that at the start of Higgins' career that we thought we'd found an absolute gun. Maybe they gave him 7 at a time when he was feeling discouraged due to all of his injuries, so they said 'have Dougie's and Westy's old number. We haven't lost faith in you and still believe you'll be a champion'. I think some people think that Higgins is soft, but I think it's normal, when you've had all the injuries that he's had - you lose all confidence in your body, so you're reluctant to go at one hundred percent. So, in my opinion, 7 for Higgins was reasonable - he could have been anything, given his amazing skills. But, 3 for Everitt .... seriously?

Chris grant chose Everitt to get his number

 

[TheHoneyBadger]

As far as I'm concerned, Everitt may as well have never played at our club. Our current #3 is a dedicated, hard working and immensely talented footballer, and a terrific bloke that I'm grateful to have spoken to on a number of occasions. He'll play many games for our club, and the achievements he'll record in that proud number will wipe any memory of 'Andrejs' from our minds.

Higgins in #7 doesn't bother me in the slightest. He was blighted by injury and still stuck it out for 129 games in our colours. I didn't always appreciate his attitude, but there's no questioning his mental fortitude given the trials he endured. Good luck to him at North, and may the prodigiously talented Lachie Hunter fulfil our lofty expectations in our most beloved number.

 

[Scenester]

Chris grant chose Everitt to get his number

If that's the case, I think that he erred, no disrespect to you or Chris Grant.

 

[Not_Oliver]

Looking back it didn't sound like a good time for the Bulldogs but Bev has proved good, hunter is great over Higgins and Griffey isn't doing well at gws. And all the finals doubt was proved wrong