The next 5 years could be a battle for GF's between Bulldogs vs the Giants vs the Suns if the Suns get their shit together and aren't crueled by 20 players on the injury list like this season. They have plenty of future Rd1 and Rd2 picks and top picks to come with trades for players like O'Meara, Prestia Matera etc who want to leave.
The Bulldogs - 17 of their 22 players today were aged 25 or less and of that 17, only Dahlhaus has cracked 100 games. 6 have between 50 and 99 and 10 had played less than 50.
Of their 5 players over 25 Dickson has only played 78 and he's 28, the 3 x 30 year old veterans, Boyd and Morris have over 200 and Picken has 175 and Easton Wood at 27 has only racked up 107.
They are a lot like the age and experience profile of the Hawks 2008 but are even younger and less experienced. The Hawks had 2 x 200 gamers Crawford 300+ and Croad and 8 others who played 100+ the Bulldogs had only 2+3, the 50-99 range was 9 hawks v 7 doggies and 1 to 49 range was 3 hawks and 9 doggies and like the hawks of 2008 probably 2 or 3 years ahead of schedule. Injuries did effect their age and experience profile with Murphy, Redpath, Wallis, Jong and Crameri - CAS suspension probably would have all played if available and made the doggies age and game profile increase.
The hawks had a lot of top 10 and top 20 picks in 2008. In 2008 a 23-1 Geelong choked more than the Hawks pinched the flag. I don't think you can say Sydney choked but a battered Bulldogs did get an advantage from the new finals bye. They were pretty banged up at the end of Rd 23.
They don't have us much top end talent as the GWS and even GC but they have enough.
Bontempelli pick 4, Stringer pick 5, Macrae pick 6, Tom Boyd pick 1 - he has come of age these finals and that investment in him is looking alright now compared to 6 weeks ago, Johannisen, and the 3 father sons Hunter, Libba and Mitch Wallis, ( who has been out for a few weeks now) and they didn't have to pay full tote odds for them. There are a lot of 15-30 picks in the Bulldogs squad.
And they have 4 All Oz defenders in the squad with Matthew Boyd, Dale Morris, Easton Wood and Bob Murphy, so they know how to defend. They have to offer Boyd and Morris a new contract for 2017 seeing they gave Murphy one.