What They're Saying - The Bulldogs Media Thread - Part 2

[SlimShaddy]

Yep. If Tim Walsh was just a solid footballer we could’ve pinched a flag in 08, 09 or 10.
I went to school with his cousin. He came up to me after the draft (knowing I was basically the only dogs supporter at school) and told me that he was shite. He was right.

 

[TempleKelvington]

Yes Brown was their the year before Wallace and the money thing was pretty much public knowledge at the time. I also recall him saying he was going there to play finals and subsequently we played plenty after he left and he played none at the Tigers.

Yeah so given that, if you roll Nathan Brown going to the tigers, into he won't play finals into a multi Sportsbet will pay $3.50.......gamble responsibly.

 

[Cadillac]

I'll match your Hunter and McLean and raise you Jong and Honeychurch (and Campbell) . Not saying you are wrong but I am not sure how much is due to the development program we have and how much is due to the talent and work ethic of the player himself. I just don't know and am not sure if our development program is any better than that at any other club.

I think we’ve done a terrific job in developing Jong. As for the other two, unfortunately they are just average footballers. But I’m confident we have got the best out of what they can deliver at AFL level.

 

[immortalmike]

Not convinced he would’ve made that much difference. Wouldn’t have changed 2005 final round loss to Melbourne when Jeff White locked us out of finals; or the 2006 heavy finals loss in Perth; in 2007 we didn’t make the finals; in 2008 he wouldn’t have stopped Franklin in the QF and we wouldn’t have backed up to beat them in the GF; by 2009 it was his last year and probably our best chance. Perhaps we’d have been better with him in that year if he could kick straighter but it seems a stretch to say we’d have won a flag with him in. I probably buy the Hall argument more than that but then again he didn’t get us there in 2010.

I hate these types of arguments as they're just pissing in the wind. But our strength in 2008 and 09 was our unpredictable attack and we were very close to a grand final in both years because of it. Adding a prime Brown very well could have put us over the top in both prelims and as we saw in 2016 anything can happen in a grand final.
Overall if your argument is that adding an All Australian player to a top 2-3 team wouldn't change things much I'd heavily disagree.

 

[Scary_Foot_9]

Yep. If Tim Walsh was just a solid footballer we could’ve pinched a flag in 08, 09 or 10.
I went to school with his cousin. He came up to me after the draft (knowing I was basically the only dogs supporter at school) and told me that he was shite. He was right.

Its strange I really don't think about Walsh much in terms of terrible Bulldogs draft busts like Everett, Jarrad Grant, Faulkner and Howard but he was worse than all of them combined probably. We turn at least one of those players into a solid contributor instead of having to play VFL standard guys like Callan and Tiller in a Prelim we might get over the line.

Cheers Scotty Clayton.

 

[Werewolf]

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-05-11/quarters-ladder-where-does-your-club-rank

We have only won one last quarter so far this year, thirds are not too flashy either. Just backs up the fact we have been running out games poorly

That's a bit deceptive as two last quarters were lost by a few points. 145-171 isn't too bad overall and that was 42-66 after round 2, so it's only been -2 points in the last 5 games and last week's final quarter should've been won by a lot more, but for poor goal kicking

 

[dogwatch]

That's a bit deceptive as two last quarters were lost by a few points. 145-171 isn't too bad overall and that was 42-66 after round 2, so it's only been -2 points in the last 5 games and last week's final quarter should've been won by a lot more, but for poor goal kicking

Another potboiler article by the AFL. Doesn't really mean much.

 

[DelRe]

I hate these types of arguments as they're just pissing in the wind. But our strength in 2008 and 09 was our unpredictable attack and we were very close to a grand final in both years because of it. Adding a prime Brown very well could have put us over the top in both prelims and as we saw in 2016 anything can happen in a grand final.
Overall if your argument is that adding an All Australian player to a top 2-3 team wouldn't change things much I'd heavily disagree.

Yeah it’s the old butterfly flaps its wings scenario but he was well past his AA days by the time of the prelims which is the scenario in question and retired in 2009 so you can’t add a ‘prime’ Brown unfortunately. No matter how good he was he wouldn’t have got us there in 2008, he wouldn’t have made the difference between us and Cats or Hawks that year. I think there’s a bit of rose coloured glasses about 2008. 2009 as I say, maybe, but that was his last year. Certainly might’ve helped if he could’ve kicked straighter - replacing Callan or even Welsh. So I’m not convinced we’d have won a flag with Brown being there - it’s a nice thought but not persuasive to me.

 

[immortalmike]

Yeah it’s the old butterfly flaps its wings scenario but he was well past his AA days by the time of the prelims which is the scenario in question and retired in 2009 so you can’t add a ‘prime’ Brown unfortunately. No matter how good he was he wouldn’t have got us there in 2008, he wouldn’t have made the difference between us and Cats or Hawks that year. I think there’s a bit of rose coloured glasses about 2008. 2009 as I say, maybe, but that was his last year. Certainly might’ve helped if he could’ve kicked straighter - replacing Callan or even Welsh. So I’m not convinced we’d have won a flag with Brown being there - it’s a nice thought but not persuasive to me.

He also had broken his leg which was a freak accident that probably didn't happen with us.
So prime Brown is absolutely still in effect.
Also don't agree on 08. We were well and truly in the contest I think people look at the scores and forget how close we actually got.

 

[DelRe]

He also had broken his leg which was a freak accident that probably didn't happen with us.
So prime Brown is absolutely still in effect.
Also don't agree on 08. We were well and truly in the contest I think people look at the scores and forget how close we actually got.

Can you include a pre broken leg Brown or just insert how he was playing in 08-09 with Tigers? Changes the argument a bit. Imagine if we’d had Brisbane hat trick Aker instead of what we had as well etc. Agree though it would make more of a difference if you had his 02-03 form but that’s kind of twisting the argument a bit and I’m probably not fully convinced - not overwhelmed anyway.

Let’s face it we just don’t beat Cats in finals (I shudder to think what would’ve happened in 2016 had Smith not missed the goal that allowed us to play the Hawks instead, so that Swans could knock them out for us). In 2008 though I’ll admit we gave the Cats a run right up until Johnson was robbed of a free after being shirt fronted by Rooke. Forget Brown - change that one decision and now you’re talking what ifs.

 

[_M_16_]

There as a recent article about McLean in the Herald Sun, and one new about Macrae. Unable to post because of the paywall unfortunately. Anyone with a rundown of what they were about?

 

[NBates]

There as a recent article about McLean in the Herald Sun, and one new about Macrae. Unable to post because of the paywall unfortunately. Anyone with a rundown of what they were about?

Is this what you're after? (sorry if previously posted):

Toby McLean is no young pup despite playing just 45 AFL games

SAM LANDSBERGER, Herald Sun

May 12, 2018 9:00am

TOBY McLean describes it as a “weird feeling”.

The Western Bulldogs premiership player is 22 and played just his 45th AFL game last weekend.

But looking around the Ballarat locker room he noticed he was no young pup.

“I’m sort of 40 games in and in my fourth year, and I think there’s about eight or nine under me that haven’t played as many games,” McLean said.

“It’s different. I’m not as vocal as say a Lachie Hunter, but I try to lead by example on the field.”

Actually, there were 11 teammates with less AFL experience than McLean against Gold Coast. If he was at Sydney or Essendon there would’ve been only five or six

But the 2016 premiers have fielded the youngest line-up in each of the first seven rounds and will again in Round 8. They have also fielded the least experienced 22 every week.

On Saturday night against the Brisbane Lions they will trot out a team with an average of just 55 games and 22.5 years, opposed to the winless Lions’ 80 games and 24.4 years.

Matthew Suckling is the only Bulldog in Saturday night’s side to have blown out 26 birthday candles.

Last week Hunter, 23, captained the Dogs.

“Third man in line, but he did a great job,” McLean said.

Skipper Easton Wood (hamstring) and vice-captain Marcus Bontempelli, 22, (hip) were out, and Hunter got the nod in a lineball call over Jason Johannisen to toss the coin.

Bontempelli’s absence left a hole in the centre circle and McLean helped fill it.

Usually, McLean “partners up” with Brownlow Medal chance Jackson Macrae.

“If you’re in a partnership one of us has to be in there (the centre bounce) — that’s all you’ve got to worry about it,” McLean said.

“(Macrae) loves the centre bounce so I sort of let him do his work, but (last week) it was me and Jongy. We sort of did a bit more 50-50 which I think worked for us.”

Toby McLean played his 45th AFL games last weekend. Picture: Getty Images

Last week McLean attended 56 per cent of centre bounces, up from 39 per cent in the first six rounds.

For a player who judges his game on physicality, it was a good result.

“I love it — I love being around the ball and being hard over it and sticking my tackles,” McLean said.

“If I’m being physical and laying hard tackles then everything flows from there.”

McLean stuck a career-best 13 tackles last week to go with a career-high 33 disposals, most after Gold Coast man-child Brayden Crossley ironed him out with a hip-and-shoulder.

Coach Luke Beveridge said it was among McLean’s best games.

“(It was) when you throw in the 13 tackles with the quality and quantity of his other involvements,” he said.

“With Marcus going out he took on a bit more responsibility as an inside mid and it was a really important game for us. He was influential.”

McLean isn’t the only pup tracking steeply upwards.

Rookie and Carlton discard Billy Gowers, who was just about hand-picked by Beveridge, has added spunk and energy close to goal.

Gowers made his debut in Round 1 and is one of just five AFL players to have kicked a goal in each of the first seven rounds — alongside Mark LeCras, Jesse Hogan, Will Hoskin-Elliott and James Stewart.

With Dale Morris (knee) and Marcus Adams (ankle) sidelined, Aaron Naughton has held down a key defensive post in every game.

Naughton was drafted at No.9 as a 17-year-old last November.

“He’s been outstanding,” Beveridge said.

“I don’t know what his intercept tallies are comparatively, but he takes a lot of intercept marks, he’s brave and he’s starting to use the ball better as well.”

Are the Rising Star judges watching?

Naughton, who helped Wood defend Buddy Franklin in Round 4, averages 7.3 intercept possessions per game and 2.7 intercept marks, ranked No. 2 at the Dogs.

The No.1 intercept marker at Whitten Oval is 24-game defender Bailey Williams, with the baby backline rounded out by Zaine Cordy (36 games), Ed Richards (six) and Lewis Young (eight).

But why are the Dogs the league’s youngest less than 30 games after a flag?

“We didn’t plan it,” Beveridge said.

“What’s transpired over the last year and a half is that there has been a group of players who, for one reason or another, have had a lot of injury or they haven’t been able to find their previous best.

“So we haven’t been able to have any expediential growth from what we had established previously.

“Even though the younger guys are showing some good signs, they have still got to a hell of a lot to learn.

“We are really proud of the way they have stepped up in elite company and have been able to produce some really good performances.”

Beveridge has often spoken about how the Dogs are evolving and there is a hint of Alastair Clarkson’s 2017 message in his words.

“And if they can come on really, really quickly, who knows what can happen.”

 

[Cadillac]

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/when-the-lions-almost-became-bulldogs-20180511-p4zeqc.html

 

[RedWhite&Blue]

When the Lions almost became Bulldogs
It was sitting there wedged in the box, sliced between random papers, its black plastic binder half -broken, the transparent cover a window on what was inside and what might have been in football.

Matt Rendell was working through the old box at home throwing stuff out when he came across the folder.

The Victorian Football League letterhead was a moment of jolting nostalgia.

“Background to the Fitzroy Bulldogs” the title read. It is dated October 3, 1989.

It was the document confirming the official merger of the Fitzroy and Footscray football clubs. It is an aggressively bullish outline of the rationale of the merger and scopes out in detail how this merged entity will work and why it must work.

The muscular language now sounds all the more verbose with the knowledge that it was the merger that never happened.

It was the merger the VFL wanted and bullied Footscray into signing up to, albeit through gritted teeth and only before immediately rushing to court to have it overturned. The document is a football artefact.

Rendell didn’t know he had it or how he got it. He doubts they handed them out, so figures he might have slipped one into his tracksuit top on the way out. It was a chaotic time.

“I was shocked that I actually had this at home, I can’t believe they let us walk out with it. I was surprised when I found I had it,” he said.

Now at Collingwood in recruiting, Rendell was then the Fitzroy ruckman and recalls being rung that day (on his home phone, this was pre-mobile phones) and asked to come down to the club to support an announcement.

“They needed some players to represent the club and they rang a few and couldn’t get any. 'Roosy' [Paul Roos] and 'Perty' [Gary Pert] would always go on holidays straight away so they wouldn’t be around. Lynchy [Alastair Lynch], too. So I got a call to go to it," Rendell remembers of that time nearly 30 years ago.

“They had some Bulldogs players there, I remember Dougie Hawkins was there.”

For the Fitzroy players a merger was not a surprise, nor an unwelcome move. They were the VFL’s struggling itinerant club and had been close to merging several times before.

They had long left Brunswick Street Oval and the Junction Oval and even Victoria Park. They had trained for a time at Northcote Park though training was regularly cancelled because the ground was so soft the players would sink in the turf.

“At Northcote we had to put all our weights in this little room then bring them out and do our weights in the open air then put them all back again every session,” Rendell recalled.

By 1989 they were training at Lakeside Oval in Albert Park (now the athletics track) after South Melbourne decamped for Sydney, and were playing their games at Princes Park.

There had been a push to move them to the Gold Coast, which they resisted, and then they were close to merging with Melbourne.

The Melbourne Lions deal only fell over at the death after a last-minute change to the composition of the new board. Melbourne insisted the Melbourne Cricket Club also have two board members though coincidentally those two cricket club members were also football club members. It was untenable for Fitzroy to be outnumbered on the board.

Hawthorn, too, had proposed a merger, though former Fitzroy president Leon Wiegard recalled this week that the only sop to the Roys was that the Hawks would put a Lions emblem on the leg of the shorts … of the seconds team.

“I went through the end-of-‘86 one, when we were going to the Gold Coast, so after that I thought something is going to happen to Fitzroy,” Rendell said.

This time it was different. Footscray was in a parlous financial position – Fitzroy might have been offered around for sale by the VFL but they were still financial – and so the structure of the deal was heavily weighted in Fitzroy’s favour.

The document spells it out. It is a window on the aggressive culture of the VFL at the time. It does not pull a punch describing Footscray Football Club’s choice as stark: ''extinction or merger’’. In the end they got both wrong.

The document is interesting for its detail and why it was that the offer was persuasive for Fitzroy - it was more takeover than merger - even if there were doubts that two weak clubs could make a strong one. Still they were to be the dominant partner and if a merger was inevitable then being the dominant partner was the preferred result.

Now living in Hong Kong, the then Footscray President Nick Columb remembered this week the period vividly.

“They rang me on the Monday after the grand final and said we want you to come in for a meeting. And look they had had this conference down in Tassie where they decided they had to cut the number of teams so I would get these calls saying ‘We want you to meet with the president of North Melbourne, or Melbourne or Fitzroy. It was constant,’ ” Columb said.

“They felt at the time Footscray was trading while insolvent so they thought they had an axe to hold over our head.

“So when (Ross) Oakley rang I said, 'look, if you want to talk mergers then I can’t be there on my own, the whole board has to come.' So we did. The whole board went in and saw Oakley and Albert Mantello and Graeme Samuel and they said: 'You are trading while insolvent. We demand that you merge with Fitzroy and if you don’t do so by the end of today we will withdraw your licence to be part of the VFL and we will do that at the end of today.' ”

With this gun to their heads, the club signed. Columb said it was the smartest move they made for had they not signed they would have lost their VFL licence and with it their standing to be able to challenge the merger in the courts with the action that was subsequently successfully taken with Irene Chatfield.


Of course, history confirms that the merger did not go ahead and the blowback at the VFL was vicious. It also galvanised Footscray in a way that it never did Fitzroy. Footscray staved off execution, unearthed a young leader in Peter Gordon and ultimately not only stayed in the competition but as we know has since won a flag.

Fitzroy, in contrast, soon after merged with the Brisbane Bears, but for those involved the merged Lions never felt the same.

“I’ve always felt that after Fitzroy merged (as the Brisbane Lions), it was not like barracking for your son,'' Wiegard said. ''It’s like barracking for your cousin’s son. There’s a connection there, but it is not the same.”

Wiegard is wistful now that had Fitzroy been able to hang on another two years the broadcast dollars might have saved them.

The Lions play the Bulldogs in Melbourne this Saturday but Wiegard will show only passing interest. At his age, golf and his grandkids’ sport draws more of his time.

The document raises that idea of what might have been had it gone through.

“It would have been a good team,” Rendell said. “They had just come off a bit of success with Mick Malthouse coaching. (Malthouse left at the end of 1989 at the time of the merger talks to join West Coast and was replaced for the next season by Terry Wheeler).

“As a player you got enthused about it, oh yeah definitely, considering we were going to be the major partner. The only question mark you had was ‘I won’t survive here’. Because I was near the end and Scotty Wynd was their ruckman and he would have been in front of me.”

Rendell retired at the end of 1991 then was enticed out of retirement by his old coach Robert Walls, ironically to join Brisbane.

“The merger sparked the fans, more so the diehard Bulldogs, it wasn’t us at Fitzroy. I think our people were resigned to the fact we were merging with someone. It was like we had had enough. It was the Bulldogs people who kyboshed it.

“They have done a super job (at the Bulldogs). They were the junior party in the merger and they have survived where Fitzroy couldn’t. They flourished enough to win a flag."


THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL

The VFL document is blunt.

The Bulldogs faced two choices: ‘‘extinction or merging’’. The VFL said the Dogs at that point in 1989 were $2 million in debt and facing another $700,000 loss that season. ‘‘As of today the Footscray Football Club is insolvent’’ the document said.

The new entity was to be debt free, play home games at Princes Park and train – at times, according to Leon Wiegard – at Western Oval (now Whitten Oval).

A playing list of 52 would be drawn from a possible 125 players on the combined clubs lists of senior and under-19 players. The club would keep both clubs existing recruiting zones.

Most critically, the jumper was to be a hybrid with ‘‘the Fitzroy colours to be used in a new configuration to be developed by the VFL (not, it may be rightly oberved, by the club itself) to
reflect the nature of the two previous jumpers’’.

The Bulldog was to be retained as the insignia of the new club.

The board was to have four members from each club and Leon Wiegard as its president.

Then Fitzroy coach Rod Austin, who had just finished his first year in charge of the Roys, was to be retained as senior coach. Foootscray’s coach Mick Malthouse moved to West Coast as senior coach at the end of that season.

The document also insists that there is a ‘‘realisation that one-team venues are not viable’’.
Having lived the experience since then of the ground rationalisation that was to come, clubs are skeptical of that VFL/AFL logic.

 

[Mr. Walker]

Where did this article appear?

ignore - just saw the post above this one

 

[mambavino]

Quite interesting to read that Peter Gordon is going to act on behalf of the AFL in the Joel Wilkinson case.

 

[Mr. Walker]

Quite interesting to read that Peter Gordon is going to act on behalf of the AFL in the Joel Wilkinson case.

Well he does like going to the Human Rights Commission of late.

 

[Struggle]

Quite interesting to read that Peter Gordon is going to act on behalf of the AFL in the Joel Wilkinson case.

Trying to get Good Friday back?

 

[doggies ftw]

Quite interesting to read that Peter Gordon is going to act on behalf of the AFL in the Joel Wilkinson case.

Maybe trying to get back in the good books of the AFL? Whether you're right or wrong you cant win going toe to toe with the league

 

[Draft Pick]

Maybe trying to get back in the good books of the AFL? Whether you're right or wrong you cant win going toe to toe with the league

The relationship between the Dogs and AFL has never been better.

 

[BEaston]

There's a bunch of people, that would be out in force with their pitchforks if Gordon were representing Wilkinson in this case, that are strangely quiet at the moment.

 

[immortalmike]

There's a bunch of people, that would be out in force with their pitchforks if Gordon were representing Wilkinson in this case, that are strangely quiet at the moment.

Name names or don't bother.

 

[NBates]

Just read the latest installment in the cheaters saga (Mike Fitzpatrick on talking footy) and they mentioned that jeff Kennett had a meeting with disgruntled afl president recently. Just wondering if anyone knew whether gordon went to that?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[Snake Livermore]

Name names or don't bother.

PG has copped some criticism on here for some of his 'leftie' extracurricular activities. Fair call by fpcookie, I don't see why he should have to go back through posts to find out names for you.

 

[TiAn_]

There's a bunch of people, that would be out in force with their pitchforks if Gordon were representing Wilkinson in this case, that are strangely quiet at the moment.

Would anyone actually be on board with our club President warring against the AFL on behalf of an aggrieved former player of another club?

Even acting for the AFL is bizarre, if it’s true.