Have they given us the right "rival"?

Persevering Saint

Brownlow Medallist
Joined
Jun 8, 2007
Posts
16,904
Likes
27,541
Location
MAdelaide
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
I'm a lover, not a fighter
Thread starter #1
Something that's bothered me these last few years is who the AFL have picked as our rival. The choice of the Doggies seems particularly stupid since Melbourne and Geelong also are portrayed as "rivals." Surely the current situation is the worst of all worlds. The fact is that I don't think any of these four teams have really ever had a serious rival (like Carlton & Collingwood, for example), so any rivalry has to be made up.

Geelong IS, most of the time now, our rival team - the animosity we've built up with them after that pre-season Grand Final a few years back has been pretty darn strong.

Of course, the rivalries that makes the most sense, from another point of view, are Cats versus Dogs, and Saints versus Demons. These mascots are total opposites.

Thoughts?

(Having said all that, I hope we absolutely pummel the Doggies this week: percentage!)
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

sauce_head

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
Aug 24, 2006
Posts
7,042
Likes
3,668
AFL Club
St Kilda
#2
Agree. There is no rivalry between the two teams. Geelong definately should be our team. West Coast should have Sydney.

We would also be good against Freo, after the close games and the AFL handing them one, but it is not as big as Freo WC I guess.
 

DoggyStyle

Club Legend
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
Posts
1,673
Likes
273
Location
61.9.165.49
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
#3
Something that's bothered me these last few years is who the AFL have picked as our rival. The choice of the Doggies seems particularly stupid since Melbourne and Geelong also are portrayed as "rivals." Surely the current situation is the worst of all worlds. The fact is that I don't think any of these four teams have really ever had a serious rival (like Carlton & Collingwood, for example), so any rivalry has to be made up.

Geelong IS, most of the time now, our rival team - the animosity we've built up with them after that pre-season Grand Final a few years back has been pretty darn strong.

Of course, the rivalries that makes the most sense, from another point of view, are Cats versus Dogs, and Saints versus Demons. These mascots are total opposites.

Thoughts?

(Having said all that, I hope we absolutely pummel the Doggies this week: percentage!)
Agreed, there is absolutely no rivarly between the dogs and the Saints, the whole rivarly round is another pathetic effort by the AFL to boost attendence. The fact that each year the team played in rivalry round differs and only the true rival continue to play each other.

Anyway, after this weekends match there may be good cause for the Dogs and Saints to be rivals as I am afraid the Dogs are going to give the Saints a good old fashioned pants down with side that closely resembles a solid VFL team!
 

joeblow2

Team Captain
Joined
Apr 10, 2007
Posts
564
Likes
25
Location
Irymple
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
Baltimore Ravens
#5
Agreed, there is absolutely no rivarly between the dogs and the Saints, the whole rivarly round is another pathetic effort by the AFL to boost attendence. The fact that each year the team played in rivalry round differs and only the true rival continue to play each other.

Anyway, after this weekends match there may be good cause for the Dogs and Saints to be rivals as I am afraid the Dogs are going to give the Saints a good old fashioned pants down with side that closely resembles a solid VFL team!
I admire your loyalty.
 

jbazzle

Senior List
Joined
Jun 24, 2007
Posts
262
Likes
36
Location
sydney
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
sydney fc, fulham fc
#6
dont you think we should play sydney. whilst im not quite old enough to remember the old vfl iv heard that south melbourne and st kilda were always rivals with the "lake side" derby.
 

sainter

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Joined
Mar 5, 2000
Posts
14,466
Likes
33
Location
Melbourne
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
Southampton,Victory,Storm
#7
Unfortunately because of our lack of success we haven't been fortunate enough to build up a rivalry like a number of teams.

We're just one of the odd ones out and I think it exposes the whole rivalry round concept as being a contrived load of crap.

The good thing is that if we can be successful on the field we'll be able to enjoy on-field rivalries with other successful teams.

I suppose given that the Bulldogs are one of the very few teams that we have a narrow win-loss record over it's as good as they could have come up with but at the end of the day both clubs have to win to keep their finals chances alive and that alone will make it such a keenly fought contest. Nothing to do with any lingering rivalry between the two clubs.
 

Gooka

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
Apr 21, 2005
Posts
5,051
Likes
4
Location
London
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
Other Teams
Western Bulldogs
#8
Not sure why it isn't Dogs and Richmond. Especially over the last 5-10 years they're the team that our supporters and players hate the most I'd imagine.
 

Ant_

Super Moderator
Joined
Oct 10, 2006
Posts
44,874
Likes
24,727
Location
Melbourne
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
Admin #9
I agree Saints ppl, no real "rivalry" with you guys. When I was in Melbourne lived near Moorabbin and regularly went to games there. As was stated earlier leave out "rivalry" for Richmond or Adelaide.
 
Joined
Aug 2, 2007
Posts
1,415
Likes
4
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
Other Teams
Utah Jazz
#10
There is no rivalry apart from my family. my mum and sister go for st kilda and me and my 2 other sisters go for dogs. I think were just the teams that dont have a rivalry. The head 2 head is close and thats bout it.
 
Joined
Aug 1, 2006
Posts
2,631
Likes
20
Location
Melbourne
AFL Club
Hawthorn
#11
I think linking a rivalry between dogs and the saints is a bit of a stretch. I would have thought that saints rivalry with freo would be the equal of the dogs. I know the hawks vs the saints in the early 70's (mainly from the 71 grand final) had a fair bit of rivalry just based on the intensity of the contests, however there is no rivalry now. I'm not sure who saints rivals are, maybe they dont have one?
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Top Bottom