bornadog
22-03-2014, 11:14 PM
http://images.theage.com.au/2014/03/22/5285376/art-svSUTTON-620x349.jpg
Charlie Sutton and Ted Whitten with the 1954 premiership flag. Photo: Supplied
They say football clubs are in the business of selling hope. Sometimes it’s a product that flies off the shelves of the merchandise store, while at others it’s harder to shift. Personally, I’m stocking up right now, because there is no time of the year that Bulldog fans enjoy more than the hours before the season begins ... and who knows how soon it will be before hope is in short supply?
For Western Bulldogs fans - particularly refugees like me from the forced Fitzroy merger - with just one premiership to our name and no one under pension age who was there to witness it, all we have is the future. That’s why the weeks before we actually start playing represents a golden sliver of hope when our footballing world really can be seen in a beautiful, shimmering light.
It’s now, when our draftees are settled in, our captain has been named and most importantly, WE HAVEN’T PLAYED AGAINST ANYONE ELSE YET, we can forget the dark times of the season just gone and dream happily of glory days not too far ahead.
While this is a regular and familiar pattern for many of the Doggy faithful, this year there’s a new and disturbing factor at play that few of us quite know how to deal with: we might be starting to get a bit good.
Everyone noticed that the Dogs finished season 2013 off pretty strongly, so now, with no (new) financial woes to worry about and our boardroom dramas seemingly behind us, the only media coverage has been positive.
Usually this would create a false sense of security as hope and commonsense battled it out for supremacy. It was an inner debate that always featured the word “if” in large quantities:
“If we can just find a full-forward from somewhere...”
“If Johnno’s knee can hold up for another season...”
“If the kids all come good and we don’t get too many injuries…”
“If Robert Groenewegen’s boy is as good as they say...”
This time around, though, there might just be some solid foundations on which to build a little optimism. Cautious optimism, that is. Cautious like a meerkat at a cobra convention.
A large part of this optimism is of course due to Brendan McCartney. When we lose he looks stern and serious and calls journalists by their first names. When we win he looks stern and serious, calls journalists by their first names and adds: “That’s a good question”.
He knows what premierships are - not because he’s seen them on the telly like most of us, but because he’s been part of making them happen.
Now the coach has quietly imported a big chunk of Geelong’s successful dynasty into his staff (Cam Mooney, Matthew Scarlett, Joel Corey, Steven King; even Ben Graham, in case they need to get all the footies down the other end of the ground in a hurry).
Rumour has it Frank Costa is buying land along the banks of the Maribyrnong and Carji Greeves is going to be retrospectively drafted onto the rookie list.
Speaking of the list, through the darkness of the past two years, nearly every player was given a taste of senior footy. That means even after round four or five next year, when we expect Tom Williams and Shaun Higgins to be safely back in the rehab group (a hyperbaric chamber/traction/full body casts and out of harm’s way) we’ll be able to field a full team of players who shave at least once a week, for the first time since the 1960s.
As for this year’s crop in the draft, the Dogs appear to have recruited (no, not a full-forward - that would be too obvious) the prototype of the future footballer: a quick, agile, long-kicking midfielder … who is SIX FOOT FIVE!
That’s right, Marcus Bontempelli, taken with pick four, would’ve been first ruck not so long ago, but now he’ll be crumbing alongside Libba and Wallis. All the reports say he’s a good kid from a fine family, who cares for the disadvantaged, cooks the perfect omelette and is a better chess player than Boris Spassky at the same age ... or something.
Plus, with pick 60 we got undoubtedly either the next AFL cult hero or possibly the next Pope, by the name of Mitch Honeychurch. Who cares if he can play? I just love that name!
So what is not to be confident about this season? Lap it up, Doggie fans. Macca’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.
At least until Sunday night.
Rob Clancy if a freelance writer
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/round-one-when-anything-is-possible-for-the-doggies-20140322-hvlky.html#ixzz2wh1y8eLj
Charlie Sutton and Ted Whitten with the 1954 premiership flag. Photo: Supplied
They say football clubs are in the business of selling hope. Sometimes it’s a product that flies off the shelves of the merchandise store, while at others it’s harder to shift. Personally, I’m stocking up right now, because there is no time of the year that Bulldog fans enjoy more than the hours before the season begins ... and who knows how soon it will be before hope is in short supply?
For Western Bulldogs fans - particularly refugees like me from the forced Fitzroy merger - with just one premiership to our name and no one under pension age who was there to witness it, all we have is the future. That’s why the weeks before we actually start playing represents a golden sliver of hope when our footballing world really can be seen in a beautiful, shimmering light.
It’s now, when our draftees are settled in, our captain has been named and most importantly, WE HAVEN’T PLAYED AGAINST ANYONE ELSE YET, we can forget the dark times of the season just gone and dream happily of glory days not too far ahead.
While this is a regular and familiar pattern for many of the Doggy faithful, this year there’s a new and disturbing factor at play that few of us quite know how to deal with: we might be starting to get a bit good.
Everyone noticed that the Dogs finished season 2013 off pretty strongly, so now, with no (new) financial woes to worry about and our boardroom dramas seemingly behind us, the only media coverage has been positive.
Usually this would create a false sense of security as hope and commonsense battled it out for supremacy. It was an inner debate that always featured the word “if” in large quantities:
“If we can just find a full-forward from somewhere...”
“If Johnno’s knee can hold up for another season...”
“If the kids all come good and we don’t get too many injuries…”
“If Robert Groenewegen’s boy is as good as they say...”
This time around, though, there might just be some solid foundations on which to build a little optimism. Cautious optimism, that is. Cautious like a meerkat at a cobra convention.
A large part of this optimism is of course due to Brendan McCartney. When we lose he looks stern and serious and calls journalists by their first names. When we win he looks stern and serious, calls journalists by their first names and adds: “That’s a good question”.
He knows what premierships are - not because he’s seen them on the telly like most of us, but because he’s been part of making them happen.
Now the coach has quietly imported a big chunk of Geelong’s successful dynasty into his staff (Cam Mooney, Matthew Scarlett, Joel Corey, Steven King; even Ben Graham, in case they need to get all the footies down the other end of the ground in a hurry).
Rumour has it Frank Costa is buying land along the banks of the Maribyrnong and Carji Greeves is going to be retrospectively drafted onto the rookie list.
Speaking of the list, through the darkness of the past two years, nearly every player was given a taste of senior footy. That means even after round four or five next year, when we expect Tom Williams and Shaun Higgins to be safely back in the rehab group (a hyperbaric chamber/traction/full body casts and out of harm’s way) we’ll be able to field a full team of players who shave at least once a week, for the first time since the 1960s.
As for this year’s crop in the draft, the Dogs appear to have recruited (no, not a full-forward - that would be too obvious) the prototype of the future footballer: a quick, agile, long-kicking midfielder … who is SIX FOOT FIVE!
That’s right, Marcus Bontempelli, taken with pick four, would’ve been first ruck not so long ago, but now he’ll be crumbing alongside Libba and Wallis. All the reports say he’s a good kid from a fine family, who cares for the disadvantaged, cooks the perfect omelette and is a better chess player than Boris Spassky at the same age ... or something.
Plus, with pick 60 we got undoubtedly either the next AFL cult hero or possibly the next Pope, by the name of Mitch Honeychurch. Who cares if he can play? I just love that name!
So what is not to be confident about this season? Lap it up, Doggie fans. Macca’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.
At least until Sunday night.
Rob Clancy if a freelance writer
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/round-one-when-anything-is-possible-for-the-doggies-20140322-hvlky.html#ixzz2wh1y8eLj