Do the Dogs have an issue with indigenous players?

From the Hun:

Western Bulldogs have struck out on another indigenous player with unfulfilled talent Jack Martin set to join Carlton.

The Bulldogs tabled Martin the most generous offer — as much as $700,000 per season for five years — but the outside ball winner has rejected overtures from Whitten Oval and Fremantle, leaving the Blues in pole position to strike a trade.

Martin, 24, will still earn a long-term deal at the Blues but will play for less cash, joining indigenous players Sam Petrevski-Seton and former Dog Liam Jones.

It is the third time in as many years that the Dogs have failed to recruit an indigenous talent, largely because they do not have any indigenous players on their list.

But when Impey learned that there weren’t any indigenous players at the Bulldogs he instead accepted Hawthorn’s offer, where he played alongside superstars Cyril Rioli and Shaun Burgoyne.

The following year Chad Wingard was choosing between the Dogs and Hawks, but with Impey at Waverley Park and still no indigenous stars at the Dogs, the dual All-Australian picked Hawthorn.

Dogs president Peter Gordon has conceded that the club’s lack of indigenous players was likely to have dented their hopes of landing Wingard.

 
This will end well. Over to you Big Footy.

What's your view? This is from the Hun, and Peter Gordon acknowldges as much.

Who was the last indigenous player on your list? Clay Smith?
 

Luv_our_club

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The WB do have a bit of a problem. Birds of a feather flock together and if you don't have any indigenous players it is harder to attract them via trade. It is a temporary problem.

Another question is whether FA and increased players movement and the NGA's lead to fewer indigenous players at Vic clubs?

- NGA should mean more indigenous players, but more are now aligned directly to non-Vic clubs and don't go into the draft.
- player movement will mean more indigenous players able to go to their home state

I don't know.
 
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What's your view? This is from the Hun, and Peter Gordon acknowldges as much.

Who was the last indigenous player on your list? Clay Smith?
Last was Joel Hamling. Clay Smith isn't indigenous.

Without being inside the club it's impossible to say whether missing out on players like Martin, Wingard and Impey was due purely to a lack of indigenous representation, or more likely alongside a number of other factors - given the Bulldogs traditionally miss more trade targets than they hit anyway. That Gordon addressed it publically earlier this year probably indicates it played a part in the Impey and Wingard moves (although I don't think it was as drastic as the article suggests with Impey suddenly 'learning' we have no indignenous players and signing with the Hawks, it's not exactly difficult to spot).

The fact we have few indigenous players when compared to other clubs has has stood out to me for a few years although I've always considered it more of a coincidence than by design (obviously). We've had guys like Liam Jones, Zephi Skinner, Nathan Djerkurra, Jarrod Harbrow, Cam Faulkner etc over the years but no indigenous players of great quality or long tenure since I think Magic McLean. We have Ugle-Hagan coming through the NGA next year so hopefully that breaks the mould, but that doesn't address the apparent trade difficulties (at least not immediately).

The club do a lot of work with various multicultural programs, although I'm not aware specifically of any indigenous programs (not to say they don't exist), so I'd expect this will change shortly - they've also had Brett Goodes working in an off field role in recent years, so perhaps they identified this a while back despite Gordon only recently acknowledging it outside the 4 walls.
 

woosha24

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So its a self-fulfilling prophecy then? "Cant trade in indigenous players because there are no indigenous players on the list, and we cant get any indigenous players on the list because we cant trade them in"?

If that were the issue then the only way the Bulldogs could fix it would be to specifically draft indigenous players, and I wouldn't be advocating drafting players based solely on race. Or is the implication that the Bulldogs specifically have a problem with indigenous players, so they wont draft them?
 
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I think it is a problem most clubs have felt at one time or another. Given the percentage of indigenous players, there might be times where your best-22 is without. West Coast felt a little bit like this around the time Wirrpanda retired, as whilst we had a few indigenous players, they tended to be rookies or draftees which barely played, whilst we missed a few draft chances at talented indigenous players (e.g. 2008). Then the Murray Newman thing. Accentuated at a time when Freo usually had a couple Indigenous regulars.

Bulldogs clearly lack for indigenous players at the moment, but on the other hand the Bulldogs typically over recent decades have tended to have a few Southern European ethnic players, that's kind of a part of who they are, plus their supporter region includes a lot of migrant Asians and Sudanese. The Bulldogs and GWS in particular (as western suburbs clubs) should be encouraged to reflect their communities, which is less about indigenous nor Anglo.
 

The wily weagle

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Out of nothing more then curiosity, who was the last indigenous player the bulldogs drafted?
 
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The WB do have a bit of a problem. Birds of a feather flock together and if you don't have any indigenous players it is harder to attract them via trade. It is a temporary problem.

Another question is whether FA and increased players movement and the NGA's lead to fewer indigenous players at Vic clubs?

- NGA should mean more indigenous players, but more are now aligned directly to non-Vic clubs and don't go into the draft.
- player movement will mean more indigenous players able to go to their home state

I don't know.

NGAs arent much value if you dont put the work in, its not like a zone in the VFL days where junior footy does the work for you.
 
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Out of nothing more then curiosity, who was the last indigenous player the bulldogs drafted?
Zeph Skinner, 2010 draft. Had a number of indigenous players drafted in the mid-late 2000s including Josh Hill, Liam Jones, Jarrod Harbrow, Brennan Stack, Malcolm Lynch.
 

mike123

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Indigenous: Originating in or being native to a particular place.

I would argue that we are all indigenous in one way or another, where I was born we have clans that
contain many family branches. History is usually written by the people that win and conquer which
is sad. We are all in the same race it's called the human race.

We don't have any Irish players either, it's an outrage.
Thanks Pauline
 
So its a self-fulfilling prophecy then? "Cant trade in indigenous players because there are no indigenous players on the list, and we cant get any indigenous players on the list because we cant trade them in"?

If that were the issue then the only way the Bulldogs could fix it would be to specifically draft indigenous players, and I wouldn't be advocating drafting players based solely on race. Or is the implication that the Bulldogs specifically have a problem with indigenous players, so they wont draft them?
Sums it up.
We'll take our NGA kid Craig Cooper-Peters this year, known for being a really solid citizen off field (he designed our 2018 indigenous jumper too).
The aim is to have a solid support network around our 2020 crop which includes Jamarra Ugle-Hagen who already looks like a special talent.

It has been a factor in the pursuit of players we've publicly wanted though and there is a little Catch 22 to the whole issue.
 

TripleJay

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How the hell can you come to that conclusion, it's the exact opposite.

My top three favourite players are:
1: Peter Matera
2: Andrew McLeod
3: Keith Greig

I just don't like labels.

Careful mate. When you don't like labels that are used by others for money or power you're comments are never received in good faith.
 

Luv_our_club

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NGAs arent much value if you dont put the work in, its not like a zone in the VFL days where junior footy does the work for you.

Maybe to maximise your area you need to put in work.

But there will always be rude examples every year of players destined to play footy and who were scooped up into the NGA's.
 
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Mark West was a pretty decent player for the Bullies

images



It's not like they have a blatant racist 'no black fellas' recruiting policies a certain Melbourne based club had until the 90s.
 
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Sounds like a bit of a bulls**t reason considering Fremantle have the most indigenous players in the competition and Martin has already ruled out us out. So clearly indigenous mates isn't the biggest concern for him.

To be fair, no one wants to play for Freo.
 
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Maybe to maximise your area you need to put in work.

But there will always be rude examples every year of players destined to play footy and who were scooped up into the NGA's.

Yep, then again a kid from outside the AFL system e.g Liam Ryan can make it anyway.
 
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