Certified Legendary Thread Premiers 2016 - BULLIES DEF SWANS.. WE ARE THE CHAMPS!!!!!!!!!

[doggies ftw]

it's been a friggin brilliant month to be a dogs fan. I reckon it's just been capped off. Happens to be old Zgope1's birthday and i get a random number calling me this afternoon. Pick up the horn and a bloke goes "hey is this Zak?" "yeh mate, this is Zak" "oh g'day mate it's Mitch Wallis how ya going!?"

Old man's got a mate with a mate and got him to give us a call. Good fella, those 1%ers from players are just awesome. What a star.

Haha that's awesome mate, happy birthday, enjoy!

 

[stefoid]

Joel Hamling's return to this team was a critical part to the flag.
He only scored 40 fantasy points and had 97% ground time ... but he was playing on Buddy, most of the time, ffs.

There is one massive stat that demonstrates what a great team orientated performer he is: the one percenters:
Joel Hamling : 14 !!!
Next best are Moz and Easton with 6 each.

Joel seemed to be out of form and favour mid season, so he should get mega plaudits for what he has achieved especially.

I guess he made the right decision holding off on his contract until the end of the season...

 

[doggies ftw]

Watching the replay... again... (still get shivers at that final siren!!!) our smothering is off the charts good, didn't really notice it all year but throughout the finals it has been crazy. Every single player has the same little technique to blanket the ball right off the boot and it worked to get the ball going our way on so many different occasions.

 

[stefoid]

I'm afraid to say the grand final was a bitter sweet victory for me – my Swans supporting father was at home watching the game, and had a fatal heart attack. I was at a BBQ watching the game and found out after full time.

A very strange, sad day.

Sorry to hear, mate. Can only imagine the emotional roller coaster that you went through

 

[SedatSir316]

Did anyone expect Cordy to be such a manic in he contest? Also he is quite nifty with his hands.

 

[dogs10]

I've been fortunate in my life to witness some pretty special sporting occasions ( Born in Manchester, England ; Man utd - 99 treble, Ashes 05 ( sorry Aussies!)) and I can't claim to have followed the dogs since I was a wee kid like some people or had as long a wait as others but I can say that was by far the most emotional sporting moment I have been lucky enough to witness. Everything from Tom Boyd's goal, to Picken's perfect finals footy to the penultimate moment for me - Bevo calling up Bob. Incredible day, so proud of the club and congrats to all the lifelong sufferers, I am sure it is all worth it.


What a day, what emotion and what a result.

 

[King Harold]

Did anyone expect Cordy to be such a manic in he contest? Also he is quite nifty with his hands.

Yep that what he does . Being saying for long time this guy is going to make a very good footballer.
Just got that " s--t " in him .

 

[_Mike_]

Did anyone expect Cordy to be such a manic in he contest? Also he is quite nifty with his hands.

Zaine Cordy, premiership player with 11 games under his belt. Who woulda thunk it?

 

[giblj]

Zaine Cordy, premiership player with 11 games under his belt. Who woulda thunk it?

Over a third of his AFL games have been winning finals.

 

[_Mike_]

4 finals played, 100% win record

 

[godoggies15]

Brilliant summary of our season with commentary from Al Pacino
https://www.facebook.com/search/str...ords_search?filters_rp_author=125034834184390

 

[treefingers]

Dale Morris' tackle on Buddy for Tom Boyd's goal is one of my favourite grand final moments ever. That was ****ing unbelievable. I can't imagine what the roar was like in the stands after that one. Enjoy the win doggies!

 

[grassman75]

Came across the replay on News Radio on the ABC app. As well as being funny was impressed by their AFL knowledge. Not sure how you could get the replay though

They do it every year as well as the NRL and the State of Origin - it is so funny, except last time I tried to listen to them it was on digital radio and it was ahead of the TV coverage so I had to give up.
I'll have to listen to their call

 

[Bont2Bruce]

7 minutes before kick off
View attachment 296173

Kick off is what they say in Sydney. I know, the newspapers that I read after the GWS match all said kick off.

Last time I checked, there was a bounce to start the game.

 

[Bazza Bulldog]

Just back from Melbourne. I'm sure my experiences are similar to many posted here. A few magic highlights from me ...

Not directly game related
- 3 quarter time urinal a neutral turned and said to me 'I'm a mess ... I can't imagine how your feeling'
- In the last quarter a neutral was continuously walking up and down the stairs as 'watching our supporters faces was better than the game'
- Barry Hall outside after the game shaking any bulldog supporters hand he could find (nearly broke mine)
- Brett Goodes silently watching from afar with a giant smile on his face
- The walk back from the G to Fed square with the happiest 20,000 people on earth at that moment
- Sharing highlights with unknowns on the train back to where I was staying

Game related
- Those last 3 goals ... hugging unknowns, wild celebrations and the biggest roar I've ever heard
- Libba siddling up to Dahl during McLeans last kick where supposedly said 'I'm about to hug you'
- Joel Hamling, Dale Morris and Eason Wood ... 'we', not 'me' players

I can't believe I've only been back in the country 12 weeks. Christmas is cancelled (due to cost of ticket) ... but that was worth every cent!

 

[bullish23]

Got back to honkers Monday afternoon.

The parade turnout was incredible. Must have been 50k of dogs supporters.

I sat city end behind the goals. Managed to get on the fence for the lap of honour. The roar for Morris's tackle and the Boyd goal will stick forever.

Drank with a bunch of strangers at the crown (including Danny the banner guy until 4am). Song was sung with much gusto as the whole bar linked arms including robbo. Immediately prior to that the band concluded with holy grail. Made a lot of friends that evening and all any of us could not contain was beaming smiles.

Managed to make it to WO. An ocean of red white and blue.

I want to do it all again. Bring on 2017

 

[Gavin Excell]

For me the moment of this grand final was the manic minute leading up to Pickens 2nd goal. It must have involved the swans smothering 4 shots at goal from:toyd, Biggs, Daniel - Biggs had 3-4 efforts. One pressure act after another the ball went from the pocket to near the goal square and back again. In a manic game it was the manic moment - 17 minute mark - 7 minutes to go.
1 point the difference - somehow the ball comes back out to near the 50 meter line - Macrae twists, back tracks and centers the ball. McLean goes for the mark - it's over his head. Picken picks up the loose ball. Lines up and slots it thru.

That effort by both sides had the hair on the back of my neck standing up. There was still time for the swans to come back but I felt their spirit had just been broken.

It was an epic contest and that moment epitomized the entire game.

Only Franklin could summon another serious effort and when Morris tackled him to the ground and Boyd kicked the sealer he gave it away too.

Agree Yebiga. Watched that at time and was gasping for a breath at the time. Watched last qtr on replay sunday and was similarly amazed. Its a brutal passage of play and sydney ought to be commended for their part in it. My highlight of the match

 

[ab_83]

Howdy all.

I'm still so ecstatic. I don't think this feeling is going to wear off anytime soon.

From the moment i woke on Saturday morning up until the bounce i had a massive smile on my face as i couldn't believe that i was going to watch the Dogs on the GF!

The game was a bit of a blur and went by so quickly. After the game i just stood in the stand trying to soak up the moment we became premiers. It was surreal. Still is.

I love this club and i love all of you in the Doggie family.

WESTERN BULLDOGS 2016 AFL PREMIERS

PS Does anyone have a link to the entire fox footy coverage? I have had a quick look through this thread and haven't seen anything.

 

[PSP18]

I sent this to my best mate on Facebook. It's quite a personal account, so some of the name will mean nothing to you, but I think you'll enjoy anyway

*************

I'm too sleep deprived and time poor and emotionally drained to put together a properly structured, grammatically sound piece with consistent tense, tone and a beginning, middle and end, so this will have to do: A collection of loose, obscure and profound thoughts on the most unexpectedly joyful and ebullient four weeks of our lives.

One note. When talking about the team, I use the terms “we” and “they” interchangeably. Needless to say, I didn’t win the premiership, and like you, my dream of pulling on the tricolours ended circa 1996, when I realised I was nowhere near good enough at footy. My contribution to the triumph consisted of consuming beer, losing my voice a handful of times and posting a bunch of stuff on Twitter. But 2016 was a victory for all of us who have followed the team; a reward for all that faith and resilience which has bound our friendship group and your family.

Make yourself a cup of tea.

*************

Remember that year we won the premiership from 7th?

Remember that year we won the flag with the most inexperienced team in the top 8?

Remember that 37 days ago we lost to Fremantle and mustered 6 goals for the entire afternoon?

Our flag odds at the start of September were $67 with one bookmaker.

Remember how dysfunctional our forward line was from roughly mid-May to mid-August?

Remember when Jake Stringer got dropped to the VFL just 2 weeks before the finals?

Remember when Crameri got done for doping, Bob Murphy did his knee, JJ his hammy, Suckling his Achilles, Libba got injured, and so did Macrae on the same night down at Geelong, and McLean and Campbell and Wood all got injured too, and Redpath, Wallis, Adams got ruled out for the rest of the year, and I’m sure I’m missing some… and we agreed that one finals win would make for a successful year because it would be an improvement on 2015, which in itself was an extraordinary season of football?

Remember when we got Tory Dickson from Noble Park; Jason Johannisen off the rookie list; and Joel Hamling, who couldn’t crack a game in 3 years at Geelong.

And remember how grand final week, and day, was an experience that only happened to other people, and never to us, and we doubted it ever would?

The first final was on a Thursday, against West Coast, making it virtually impossible to travel to Perth. Remember when four of us met up at your place on Thursday, September 8, and ordered 3 large pizzas and garlic bread from Speedy’s Pizza in Braybrook, and it all began from there…

We were $5.00 outsiders to beat West Coast in the elimination final. 5-1 just to make the second week of four.

The Dogs had never won a final outside of Melbourne. Ever. We’d won 5 times away to West Coast in 29 years.

Beveridge said “**** it” and made five changes for the match, including bringing back four players from injury – a “high risk, high reward” strategy. I love having a gambler with an acute sense of risk management in the position of head coach.

How good was ambushing them. How unexpectedly fantastic was kicking seven unanswered goals. How amazing was Caleb Daniel that night. How ridiculous were the scenes in your living room. I got to sleep at 2am and worked the next day, content. Regardless of what was to come, 2016 was a brave and successful year. We were on the right track and had the makings of a premiership team in 2017 or 2018.

Geelong beat Hawthorn, so our next match was against the Hawks at the MCG: one of the greatest teams all time on their own deck. The Dogs hadn’t won two consecutive finals since 1961. The odds of winning were somewhere around $2.60.

How good was the march to the ‘G.

How good was the composure of our young team when they were four goals down.

The half time fight was fantastic.

How good was Bontempelli putting Hodge on his arse for THAT mark and, later on, “taking the baton” from him.

How good were those 6 goals we kicked just before three-quarter-time. Hawthorn, heavyweight champion, were on the ropes, saved only by the bell.

How good was ending an era.

87,823: the biggest crowd the Bulldogs had EVER won it front of.

In 22 years of following the Dogs, it remains the only time I’ve been to a winning final against a Victorian club.

How gracious were the Hawthorn fans including (redacted and redacted).

Maggie Egan cried.

How good was post-match, as the crowd cleared, standing around on the concourse outside the ground, planning the logistics of West Sydney away. Plane? Too expensive. Train? Maybe. Mini bus, perhaps? Anyone got a 5-seat car to volunteer?

Jake how good was the pub and bar crawl around Richmond after the game; red white and blue absolutely swarming Swan Street.

How good was it when about 50 men and women gave a slurry rendition of the club song at the Vaucluse Hotel well after 1am. How good was catching the end of the replay at the ****ing Vine Hotel.

I got home after 3am, hit the pillow, and dreamed of the 8 quarters to come.

Remember the absolute shit fight for tickets at 9am on Monday, the 19th of September. And the joy when Kel Egan got 8 together, with a dent on her credit card statement of just under a grand.

The game didn’t sell out and the AFLs decision to play at the Showgrounds was totally vindicated.

We left Melbourne after work on the Friday. The Dogs at $3.50-$4.00; outsiders for a third week running. Our road trip to Sydney was described by some of my mates as, amongst other things, “pointless”.

Remember listening to the Sydney-Geelong game on the Hume Highway and the Swans, the best team for most of the year, had it won inside 15 minutes and I remarked that they’ll take care of the winner of the other preliminary final winner regardless of the opponent, because I’m an idiot who didn’t take into consideration the man who coaches us. Sydney would have an extra day’s break. They had grand final experience…

Remember waking up at 5:30 in Wodonga on the Saturday morning and realising that today could be the day we finally see the Bulldogs make a grand final.

Jake took a shower whilst listening to 'Western Bulldogs – Taking Over' by Randy Moon Unit FFS.

Remember at 6am kicking a footy around the car park at the motel FFS.

Remember, whilst driving to Sydney, hearing the news that Bevo and the club had bought breakfast for 400 Bulldogs fans travelling on buses, and thinking “****, what a club”.

Pictures emerged on social media of the thousands of fans doing road trips similar to ours. One group put Jason JoVANnisen on the back of their… van.

We checked into the Lidcombe Motor Inn and, amongst other failings, noticed the smoke alarm sticky-taped to the ceiling and discovered that the toilet didn’t flush properly.

We met Beau, who brought with him to Sydney a flag his grandad’s brother took to the 1954 grand final. THE SAME FLAG 62 years later!

It was a glorious Sydney Saturday. About 23 degrees blue skies. It was tempting to think that the sun had come out on us after decades of winter days.

We cruised up to the Royal Oak Hotel in Lidcombe, and drank with dozens of our people in the beer garden, 1000kms from home. We caught a train one stop to Olympic Park.

How good was getting to pub, the Brewery, right near the stadium, and outnumbering the Giants fans maybe 30:1, and hearing the club song sung like never before by a lagered-up Footscray away following.

Remember Shaun Kelly being as “toey as a Roman sandal”.

Remember telling that Giants flog to get ****ed.

How Incredible was the volume and hostility of the booing when GWS came to warm up; some of their players looked visibly disturbed.

We outnumbered them, interstate, with roughly 11,000 people travelling from Melbourne at short notice. Desperately craving a first grand final performance for 55 years, the pilgrimage took on a religious air.

Callan Ward injured his jaw, making the game 21 v 21, after Roughy had gone off.

Clay Smith, after 3 knee reconstructions, and days after one of his best mates died, kicked 4 first half goals, in a performance for the ages.

It was an absolute street fight of a game. Neither team could get a break. It was physically combative. Heath Shaw lost the plot.

Me, you and Daniel Murphy, gradually developed Tourette’s syndrome as the game progressed. Weird ticks and sounds came out of our mouths. I have never been more of a mess at a footy match. Ever. Not even during the subsequent grand final. I still feel anxiety go through me just thinking about it.

That team goal from Caleb Daniel right before 3QT, where the team just moved the ball forward in any way they could: The whole play epitomised everything we love about the first two years of the Beveridge era.

We trailed by a single point at 3 quarter time.

Remember when they got 14 points up in the last quarter and I thought “****. Here we go again”. The 10 hour drive home and an all-Sydney grand final the next day briefly crossed my mind…

Remember GWS had about 13 first round picks in their team and have been gifted everything by the AFL. Imagine what a travesty it would have been if they reached a grand final before us.

Remember how the Sydney clubs have the so called “academy” picks and other advantages.

Remember losing Ward and Harbrow to manufactured franchises with no history, and being almost sure those “clubs” would win a flag before us.

The team found something extra. Bontempelli kicked THAT goal which made us hit the front.

I wanted to be anywhere else. A heart attack was on the cards. The scores were level.

Macrae kicked THAT goal.

Stringer squared for Dickson. There was 31 or 32 minutes on the clock. The siren went…

Remember seeing some of your best friends and closest family cry uncontrollably.

Remember Luke Darcy’s commentary (Y)

Thousands of us poured onto the ground after the game. I bumped people from Williamstown I hadn’t seen in years. They were crying. We carried on like chops of the pork variety and they had to dim the lights because no one was leaving the field of play an hour after the game had finished.

Strangers continued to hug.

It was a win for the true believers. No hangers-on; no bandwagoners. 11,000 or so committed fans prepared to travel up and risk likely defeat got full enjoyment. It felt like a home game in the stadium.

We went back to The Brewery and you had what you described as “the best beer I’ve ever tasted”. The club song was sung over and over. We made up our own songs and others got involved and danced before catching the train back to Lidcombe.

"Oh what a night / Late September up in West Sydney / Footscray claimed a famous victory / What a feeling, what a night"

We got Maccas at about 12:30 that night and I still smile when I think about how happy I was, in the western suburbs of Sydney, sitting outside with three good mates and an Angus burger.

How good were the scenes at Goulburn the next day.

Even better were the scenes on the highway. Passing or getting passed by a Footscray car every 10 or 20 kms. Scarves out of their windows. Out of ours too. Tooting, winding down windows, fist pumping.

Somewhere not far from Yass, One Day In September played on loop in the car for about 30 minutes.

Our voices were completely ****ed from the night before but still, on the drive back, the only time we stopped talking was to listen to the VFL commentary on the radio. Footscray won their 2nd flag in 3 years. The Treble was still on, pending next Saturday.

We rolled into Melbourne. So tired and delirious, the shit talk was out of control.

Within 24 or so hours we all had tickets to the grand final.

I managed to get the Thursday off work and met Jake at Flinders Street station on a dismal Melbourne morning. We caught the train out to West Footscray for open training. Danny Southern was in the next carriage. It felt like a matchday. There were about 15,000 crammed in to Whitten Oval to see a light practice session.

A man with bagpipes played the club song in the EJ Whitten Stand.

Walking through Footscray, you couldn’t go further than 10 metres without seeing tricolours. People and pubs literally repainted their buildings. The west was awash, and alive.

Getting a burger after training, Jake’s grandad remarked than he’s seen more talented Bulldogs teams but none with more heart. Noel has been watching the Dogs for 60 years. He's seen a lot.

180,000 turned out for the parade the next day: a record, or near enough to it. Vindication for Dan the Man Andrews and proof of our large dormant support.

Libba’s car slowly passed us. We gave him a DOGGIEEEEZZZ BRO! He turned to us and did the same back, gestures and all.

On the Friday night, Channel 7 re-screened Year of the Dogs. Amidst the gloom of 1996, news spread on Facebook that Jake Stringer’s dog had escaped. It freaked us out. You can’t win a grand final the day before, but you can lose it. What if our star forward is up all night looking for his pet?

Stringer’s dog was found by midnight. I got a relatively good sleep. Then came The Day.

The Dogs odds of winning were roughly $2.50. Incredibly, we were underdogs for the FOURTH week running…

Beer Deluxe was pumping by 11am. I saw old faces from my school and our local area. It was like a transported western suburbs reunion, 55 years in the making. We are a local club; team of the mighty west. Beveridge has even cultivated a local footy club culture inside the club itself. Players' families are welcome to share in the ups and downs.

A strange calmness came over me. I just wanted the game to start. I wasn’t as tense as the previous week. The team had given us the season of our lives; I was proud of them no matter what. Defeat would have been devastating, but even being there on the first Saturday in October was more than we dreamed of, as soldier after soldier after soldier went down with injury throughout the season. We’re still one of the youngest teams in the league. I was going to go out to the Whitten Oval to pay tribute the next day, even if we lost by 200 points…

I’d been offered a free(ish) grand final ticket in two previous years and turned it down both times. I didn’t want to go to one until the Bulldogs made it, protecting the record like some weirdly virtuous form of sports attendance virginity. I took my place on the top deck of the Southern Stand. Row B, on the wing. Beautiful. The pre-match entertainment started. I felt like crying. This was real. The culmination of 22 years. I was wearing the same scarf I wear every week, which someone bought for me in 1995 or 1996.

A couple of epic Bruce Springsteen tracks played at full blast shortly before the game started and it felt like the perfect music for the moment. The Boss. The Day. Come on Footscray…

They ran out to a quieter reception than I expected. Nerves in the crowd? The 55,000 or so Dogs fans got louder and louder as the day went on. The crowd’s roar had a desperation to it, a destiny about it. I only had two drinks until about 8:30pm that night and I’m glad I held back. I remember almost everything.

I later found out that the clock was showing precisely 19:54 when we put our first goal/score on the board,as Zaine Cordy converted with a barely believable shot from an angle.

Most of the first quarter was a nervous affair. We kicked away in the second but Sydney, a champion team, hit back, with 4 goals in 7 minutes, and things were looking grim. Toby McLean’s goal right before half time was Vital.

The third quarter was an arm wrestle. At one stage the Dogs sat on a barely believable 8.1.49. We never kick that accurately in finals. But tiredness kicked in and shots were missed. Sydney briefly hit the front before we turned for home 8 points ahead.

The queue for a three quarter time piss was enormous. At least one man lost patience and used a sink.

Tom Boyd, after so much unfair criticism, took command. Dunkley and Daniel and Picken and all the others slowly grew into the game. The team went up a gear. For a while, Sydney matched them. The pressure was unrelenting. It was close nearly all day.

JJ kicked an amazing goal which was overruled… only after the ball had gone back to the middle for the restart. I don’t know if it was a goal of not – it doesn’t really matter now – but the way it was recalled for a behind was a terrible look for game, very amateur. The entire goal review system needs an overhaul.

Boyd, born on the day of EJ Whitten’s state funeral, kicked a goal from the centre square. Brian Taylor swore on air in the Triple M commentary box.

Liam Picken took one of the great grand final marks and kicked two late goals. The second one, the last for the match, was the sealer. Bulldogs fans around the ground hugged the nearest person in tricolours, whether they knew them or not. A family directly behind me embraced and for a few fleeting seconds they were MY family. The tears started dripping.

In the last minute or two, the Bulldogs played “keepings off” but used their HANDS to do so. Our handball game is as good as I’ve ever seen – only Geelong’s circa 2007 go close – and it is a beautiful thing, footy’s version of tiki-taka.

I love the “Men of Mayhem” forward squeeze. The press from the front. The way Wood or Hamling or Morris or Biggs always get a fist in.

There are other elements of this Bulldogs team I love. I’ve never felt so comfortable when the opposition team get an inside 50. The defence is so organised, composed, committed. Even in the days of Lake-Hargrave-Gilbee-Morris-Williams it wasn’t this good.

The siren went. The moment I’d coveted longer than anything else in life had been realised.

As I arrived downstairs to meet Jake near the boundary line, Dougie Hawkins waved to the below crowd from level 2. He was crying, of course. He wasn’t the only one (for the record, I actually saw plenty more tears the week prior in Sydney).

I’ve rarely seen a man with an ability to choose the right words for the right moments quite like Bevo. He gave his medal to Bob Murphy. And the tears started again. Seconds later, Murphy and Easton Wood held that ****ing cup.

The players did a lap, posed for selfies, ran around, stood on the fence. Jordan Roughead, a Bulldogs fan since childhood, wore a red, white and blue scarf. He’d just lived a hundred thousand dreams.

Tom Liberatore spoke about winning an Ashes test match, making a ton and tonking Colin Miller.

A couple of people pitch invaded.

We couldn’t get match tickets all together for obvious reasons, so post-game, one after the other, my extended Bulldogs family, OUR extended Bulldogs family, including yourself, met up and hugged and struggled to know what to say or do.

We piled onto the G. The Living End performed as the sun set over the ground. Roll on! Roll on! We felt higher than any drug could make us. A conga line of about a hundred made its way around. A conga line on the same blades of grass where the Western Bulldogs had won the premiership just over an hour prior.

We danced ridiculously. The team, still in their playing kits more than 2 hours after the game, came out like rock stars, with the ground darkened and flash lights on the stage.

I literally kissed the turf as I made my way off.

I saw your mum, who has hardly missed a Dogs game for 55 years and doubted whether this Day would come.

We went back to Beer Deluxe. There must have been 500 Bulldogs fans there partying. Plenty were singing. CAMPIONE, CAMPIONE! People danced on chairs and tables and hugged and bought drinks for strangers.

The CORDY 1 GRIFFEN NIL chant started with 3 of us. Within minutes, 50 had joined in.

The best tasting cider ever was followed by the best tasting KFC ever.

Jake and I got a cab to Footscray. The cabbie was a champion. He let us plug my phone in and play tunes at full blast. He basically urged us to wind the windows down and ****ing bask in it. Dogs fans were everywhere. We got him to drive around, past the Whitten Oval, then to Yarraville.

They weren’t letting any more people into the Railway Hotel so we made do with a street party which can only be described as Loose. People drank and sang on the street.

It was now around 1am. We caught a train a few stops further west. The carriage was going off.

We could still hear people singing. We joined in. Jake and I had our last drinks at a pub whilst watching the end of the replay and got a tactical 4-5 hours sleep before heading to the Whitten Oval the next day.

30,000 turned up FFS, to a suburban ground. Mind blowing. We saw the cup lifted again and got photos and hugs with a sobbing Douglas James Hawkins. Was this even real life?

How good was the most captivating month of our lives. I think all of us became increasingly unproductive as the finals "Cup run" went on. The amount of bandwidth I must have used reading woof.net and Big Footy nearly every day…

How good is it that we lost one of the great modern finals last year, a shootout against Adelaide, and Beveridge realised we couldn’t win a flag by not bothering about defence, so he adapted.

Less than two years ago, Griffen and McCartney were still at the club and we’d just come off finishes of 15th, 15th and 14th.

How good was beating both of last year’s grand finalists in the finals series.

How good is being the only Victorian club to win the flag winning two interstate finals.

We have roughly 400 games less experience than Collingwood’s famously young premiership from 2010.

How good is the symbolism of scoring 89 points in both the preliminary and grand finals, given the Fightback of 27 years ago and all that symbolism.

How good is it that Michael Talia isn’t a premiership player.

How good was seeing our team win as many finals this year as we did for the entire 1999-2015 period.

I wonder what Shaun Higgins did on Saturday.

Remember how we hadn’t won two consecutive finals since 1961. We’ve now won 4.

How crazy and ridiculous is it that Dale Morris played the entire finals series with two broken vertebrae in his back.

How good is winning a flag before some of those other clubs, who we hopefully won’t be grouped in with so much anymore.

How good is winning on the last Saturday in September and the first Saturday in October.

Teams have had better seasons we did this year, but there is a strong argument that no team has put together a better 4 weeks of footy than the Dogs just have.

Winning four Knock-Out finals, three as the away team and one on neutral turf: Wow.

We’ll probably see another flag in our lifetime but never one like 2016.

How good is having the shortest premiership drought in the AFL.

How good is “Why Not Us?”, the club’s finals motto, which may one day sit alongside the famous "Shop Early" from 1954, if it doesn’t already.

In a way this was a triumph shared by Australia, and we’re a lot of people’s second favourite team. I love my friends and their congratulations meant a lot. It’s also been said that the Dogs this year “saved footy”. The sentiment is nice. But if we keep winning, we’ll be envied. If we win another flag in this era, I feel like it will be different; enjoyed by us and us only. Isn’t that something to look forward to?

How good was having The Best Day Of My Life twice in the space of 8 days (not kidding)*
*marriage and childbirth aside, for some of you

How good is 3 Teams, 1 Club. Champs of Australia, Victoria and the Women’s game.

How good were Picken and JJ and The Bont and Hamling and Zaine Cordy and Dahlhaus and co in the finals series.

The Drought Breakers: No matter where they end up, or what happens from here, those 22 are instant legends in the western suburbs of Melbourne, and will be forever.

How good is it that the flag actually wagged.

I’ll leave the last words to a man who can actually write, Martin Flanagan: “They hit change way back, in the 1950s, when the first wave of post-war migration hit the western suburbs, forever changing its demography. The Dogs have ridden those waves, emerging as something exciting and new and in sync with the future… It was the loudest grand final I can recall… Hawthorn won the three previous premierships by being deeply about what they were doing. This was altogether different. This was a team that didn’t know what it couldn’t do”.

 

[Dav1d]

Holy moly that's a big lost heh

 

[Some Idiot]

Yep that what he does . Being saying for long time this guy is going to make a very good footballer.
Just got that " s--t " in him .

looks a bit uncoordinated like his brother at times - but has such a great competitive edge to his game!

 

[ThirdLegUp]

I sent this to my best mate on Facebook. It's quite a personal account, so some of the name will mean nothing to you, but I think you'll enjoy anyway

*************

I'm too sleep deprived and time poor and emotionally drained to put together a properly structured, grammatically sound piece with consistent tense, tone and a beginning, middle and end, so this will have to do: A collection of loose, obscure and profound thoughts on the most unexpectedly joyful and ebullient four weeks of our lives.

One note. When talking about the team, I use the terms “we” and “they” interchangeably. Needless to say, I didn’t win the premiership, and like you, my dream of pulling on the tricolours ended circa 1996, when I realised I was nowhere near good enough at footy. My contribution to the triumph consisted of consuming beer, losing my voice a handful of times and posting a bunch of stuff on Twitter. But 2016 was a victory for all of us who have followed the team; a reward for all that faith and resilience which has bound our friendship group and your family.

Make yourself a cup of tea.

*************

Remember that year we won the premiership from 7th?

Remember that year we won the flag with the most inexperienced team in the top 8?

Remember that 37 days ago we lost to Fremantle and mustered 6 goals for the entire afternoon?

Our flag odds at the start of September were $67 with one bookmaker.

Remember how dysfunctional our forward line was from roughly mid-May to mid-August?

Remember when Jake Stringer got dropped to the VFL just 2 weeks before the finals?

Remember when Crameri got done for doping, Bob Murphy did his knee, JJ his hammy, Suckling his Achilles, Libba got injured, and so did Macrae on the same night down at Geelong, and McLean and Campbell and Wood all got injured too, and Redpath, Wallis, Adams got ruled out for the rest of the year, and I’m sure I’m missing some… and we agreed that one finals win would make for a successful year because it would be an improvement on 2015, which in itself was an extraordinary season of football?

Remember when we got Tory Dickson from Noble Park; Jason Johannisen off the rookie list; and Joel Hamling, who couldn’t crack a game in 3 years at Geelong.

And remember how grand final week, and day, was an experience that only happened to other people, and never to us, and we doubted it ever would?

The first final was on a Thursday, against West Coast, making it virtually impossible to travel to Perth. Remember when four of us met up at your place on Thursday, September 8, and ordered 3 large pizzas and garlic bread from Speedy’s Pizza in Braybrook, and it all began from there…

We were $5.00 outsiders to beat West Coast in the elimination final. 5-1 just to make the second week of four.

The Dogs had never won a final outside of Melbourne. Ever. We’d won 5 times away to West Coast in 29 years.

Beveridge said “**** it” and made five changes for the match, including bringing back four players from injury – a “high risk, high reward” strategy. I love having a gambler with an acute sense of risk management in the position of head coach.

How good was ambushing them. How unexpectedly fantastic was kicking seven unanswered goals. How amazing was Caleb Daniel that night. How ridiculous were the scenes in your living room. I got to sleep at 2am and worked the next day, content. Regardless of what was to come, 2016 was a brave and successful year. We were on the right track and had the makings of a premiership team in 2017 or 2018.

Geelong beat Hawthorn, so our next match was against the Hawks at the MCG: one of the greatest teams all time on their own deck. The Dogs hadn’t won two consecutive finals since 1961. The odds of winning were somewhere around $2.60.

How good was the march to the ‘G.

How good was the composure of our young team when they were four goals down.

The half time fight was fantastic.

How good was Bontempelli putting Hodge on his arse for THAT mark and, later on, “taking the baton” from him.

How good were those 6 goals we kicked just before three-quarter-time. Hawthorn, heavyweight champion, were on the ropes, saved only by the bell.

How good was ending an era.

87,823: the biggest crowd the Bulldogs had EVER won it front of.

In 22 years of following the Dogs, it remains the only time I’ve been to a winning final against a Victorian club.

How gracious were the Hawthorn fans including (redacted and redacted).

Maggie Egan cried.

How good was post-match, as the crowd cleared, standing around on the concourse outside the ground, planning the logistics of West Sydney away. Plane? Too expensive. Train? Maybe. Mini bus, perhaps? Anyone got a 5-seat car to volunteer?

Jake how good was the pub and bar crawl around Richmond after the game; red white and blue absolutely swarming Swan Street.

How good was it when about 50 men and women gave a slurry rendition of the club song at the Vaucluse Hotel well after 1am. How good was catching the end of the replay at the ******* Vine Hotel.

I got home after 3am, hit the pillow, and dreamed of the 8 quarters to come.

Remember the absolute shit fight for tickets at 9am on Monday, the 19th of September. And the joy when Kel Egan got 8 together, with a dent on her credit card statement of just under a grand.

The game didn’t sell out and the AFLs decision to play at the Showgrounds was totally vindicated.

We left Melbourne after work on the Friday. The Dogs at $3.50-$4.00; outsiders for a third week running. Our road trip to Sydney was described by some of my mates as, amongst other things, “pointless”.

Remember listening to the Sydney-Geelong game on the Hume Highway and the Swans, the best team for most of the year, had it won inside 15 minutes and I remarked that they’ll take care of the winner of the other preliminary final winner regardless of the opponent, because I’m an idiot who didn’t take into consideration the man who coaches us. Sydney would have an extra day’s break. They had grand final experience…

Remember waking up at 5:30 in Wodonga on the Saturday morning and realising that today could be the day we finally see the Bulldogs make a grand final.

Jake took a shower whilst listening to 'Western Bulldogs – Taking Over' by Randy Moon Unit FFS.

Remember at 6am kicking a footy around the car park at the motel FFS.

Remember, whilst driving to Sydney, hearing the news that Bevo and the club had bought breakfast for 400 Bulldogs fans travelling on buses, and thinking “****, what a club”.

Pictures emerged on social media of the thousands of fans doing road trips similar to ours. One group put Jason JoVANnisen on the back of their… van.

We checked into the Lidcombe Motor Inn and, amongst other failings, noticed the smoke alarm sticky-taped to the ceiling and discovered that the toilet didn’t flush properly.

We met Beau, who brought with him to Sydney a flag his grandad’s brother took to the 1954 grand final. THE SAME FLAG 62 years later!

It was a glorious Sydney Saturday. About 23 degrees blue skies. It was tempting to think that the sun had come out on us after decades of winter days.

We cruised up to the Royal Oak Hotel in Lidcombe, and drank with dozens of our people in the beer garden, 1000kms from home. We caught a train one stop to Olympic Park.

How good was getting to pub, the Brewery, right near the stadium, and outnumbering the Giants fans maybe 30:1, and hearing the club song sung like never before by a lagered-up Footscray away following.

Remember Shaun Kelly being as “toey as a Roman sandal”.

Remember telling that Giants flog to get stuffed.

How Incredible was the volume and hostility of the booing when GWS came to warm up; some of their players looked visibly disturbed.

We outnumbered them, interstate, with roughly 11,000 people travelling from Melbourne at short notice. Desperately craving a first grand final performance for 55 years, the pilgrimage took on a religious air.

Callan Ward injured his jaw, making the game 21 v 21, after Roughy had gone off.

Clay Smith, after 3 knee reconstructions, and days after one of his best mates died, kicked 4 first half goals, in a performance for the ages.

It was an absolute street fight of a game. Neither team could get a break. It was physically combative. Heath Shaw lost the plot.

Me, you and Daniel Murphy, gradually developed Tourette’s syndrome as the game progressed. Weird ticks and sounds came out of our mouths. I have never been more of a mess at a footy match. Ever. Not even during the subsequent grand final. I still feel anxiety go through me just thinking about it.

That team goal from Caleb Daniel right before 3QT, where the team just moved the ball forward in any way they could: The whole play epitomised everything we love about the first two years of the Beveridge era.

We trailed by a single point at 3 quarter time.

Remember when they got 14 points up in the last quarter and I thought “****. Here we go again”. The 10 hour drive home and an all-Sydney grand final the next day briefly crossed my mind…

Remember GWS had about 13 first round picks in their team and have been gifted everything by the AFL. Imagine what a travesty it would have been if they reached a grand final before us.

Remember how the Sydney clubs have the so called “academy” picks and other advantages.

Remember losing Ward and Harbrow to manufactured franchises with no history, and being almost sure those “clubs” would win a flag before us.

The team found something extra. Bontempelli kicked THAT goal which made us hit the front.

I wanted to be anywhere else. A heart attack was on the cards. The scores were level.

Macrae kicked THAT goal.

Stringer squared for Dickson. There was 31 or 32 minutes on the clock. The siren went…

Remember seeing some of your best friends and closest family cry uncontrollably.

Remember Luke Darcy’s commentary (Y)

Thousands of us poured onto the ground after the game. I bumped people from Williamstown I hadn’t seen in years. They were crying. We carried on like chops of the pork variety and they had to dim the lights because no one was leaving the field of play an hour after the game had finished.

Strangers continued to hug.

It was a win for the true believers. No hangers-on; no bandwagoners. 11,000 or so committed fans prepared to travel up and risk likely defeat got full enjoyment. It felt like a home game in the stadium.

We went back to The Brewery and you had what you described as “the best beer I’ve ever tasted”. The club song was sung over and over. We made up our own songs and others got involved and danced before catching the train back to Lidcombe.

"Oh what a night / Late September up in West Sydney / Footscray claimed a famous victory / What a feeling, what a night"

We got Maccas at about 12:30 that night and I still smile when I think about how happy I was, in the western suburbs of Sydney, sitting outside with three good mates and an Angus burger.

How good were the scenes at Goulburn the next day.

Even better were the scenes on the highway. Passing or getting passed by a Footscray car every 10 or 20 kms. Scarves out of their windows. Out of ours too. Tooting, winding down windows, fist pumping.

Somewhere not far from Yass, One Day In September played on loop in the car for about 30 minutes.

Our voices were completely stuffed from the night before but still, on the drive back, the only time we stopped talking was to listen to the VFL commentary on the radio. Footscray won their 2nd flag in 3 years. The Treble was still on, pending next Saturday.

We rolled into Melbourne. So tired and delirious, the shit talk was out of control.

Within 24 or so hours we all had tickets to the grand final.

I managed to get the Thursday off work and met Jake at Flinders Street station on a dismal Melbourne morning. We caught the train out to West Footscray for open training. Danny Southern was in the next carriage. It felt like a matchday. There were about 15,000 crammed in to Whitten Oval to see a light practice session.

A man with bagpipes played the club song in the EJ Whitten Stand.

Walking through Footscray, you couldn’t go further than 10 metres without seeing tricolours. People and pubs literally repainted their buildings. The west was awash, and alive.

Getting a burger after training, Jake’s grandad remarked than he’s seen more talented Bulldogs teams but none with more heart. Noel has been watching the Dogs for 60 years. He's seen a lot.

180,000 turned out for the parade the next day: a record, or near enough to it. Vindication for Dan the Man Andrews and proof of our large dormant support.

Libba’s car slowly passed us. We gave him a DOGGIEEEEZZZ BRO! He turned to us and did the same back, gestures and all.

On the Friday night, Channel 7 re-screened Year of the Dogs. Amidst the gloom of 1996, news spread on Facebook that Jake Stringer’s dog had escaped. It freaked us out. You can’t win a grand final the day before, but you can lose it. What if our star forward is up all night looking for his pet?

Stringer’s dog was found by midnight. I got a relatively good sleep. Then came The Day.

The Dogs odds of winning were roughly $2.50. Incredibly, we were underdogs for the FOURTH week running…

Beer Deluxe was pumping by 11am. I saw old faces from my school and our local area. It was like a transported western suburbs reunion, 55 years in the making. We are a local club; team of the mighty west. Beveridge has even cultivated a local footy club culture inside the club itself. Players' families are welcome to share in the ups and downs.

A strange calmness came over me. I just wanted the game to start. I wasn’t as tense as the previous week. The team had given us the season of our lives; I was proud of them no matter what. Defeat would have been devastating, but even being there on the first Saturday in October was more than we dreamed of, as soldier after soldier after soldier went down with injury throughout the season. We’re still one of the youngest teams in the league. I was going to go out to the Whitten Oval to pay tribute the next day, even if we lost by 200 points…

I’d been offered a free(ish) grand final ticket in two previous years and turned it down both times. I didn’t want to go to one until the Bulldogs made it, protecting the record like some weirdly virtuous form of sports attendance virginity. I took my place on the top deck of the Southern Stand. Row B, on the wing. Beautiful. The pre-match entertainment started. I felt like crying. This was real. The culmination of 22 years. I was wearing the same scarf I wear every week, which someone bought for me in 1995 or 1996.

A couple of epic Bruce Springsteen tracks played at full blast shortly before the game started and it felt like the perfect music for the moment. The Boss. The Day. Come on Footscray…

They ran out to a quieter reception than I expected. Nerves in the crowd? The 55,000 or so Dogs fans got louder and louder as the day went on. The crowd’s roar had a desperation to it, a destiny about it. I only had two drinks until about 8:30pm that night and I’m glad I held back. I remember almost everything.

I later found out that the clock was showing precisely 19:54 when we put our first goal/score on the board,as Zaine Cordy converted with a barely believable shot from an angle.

Most of the first quarter was a nervous affair. We kicked away in the second but Sydney, a champion team, hit back, with 4 goals in 7 minutes, and things were looking grim. Toby McLean’s goal right before half time was Vital.

The third quarter was an arm wrestle. At one stage the Dogs sat on a barely believable 8.1.49. We never kick that accurately in finals. But tiredness kicked in and shots were missed. Sydney briefly hit the front before we turned for home 8 points ahead.

The queue for a three quarter time piss was enormous. At least one man lost patience and used a sink.

Tom Boyd, after so much unfair criticism, took command. Dunkley and Daniel and Picken and all the others slowly grew into the game. The team went up a gear. For a while, Sydney matched them. The pressure was unrelenting. It was close nearly all day.

JJ kicked an amazing goal which was overruled… only after the ball had gone back to the middle for the restart. I don’t know if it was a goal of not – it doesn’t really matter now – but the way it was recalled for a behind was a terrible look for game, very amateur. The entire goal review system needs an overhaul.

Boyd, born on the day of EJ Whitten’s state funeral, kicked a goal from the centre square. Brian Taylor swore on air in the Triple M commentary box.

Liam Picken took one of the great grand final marks and kicked two late goals. The second one, the last for the match, was the sealer. Bulldogs fans around the ground hugged the nearest person in tricolours, whether they knew them or not. A family directly behind me embraced and for a few fleeting seconds they were MY family. The tears started dripping.

In the last minute or two, the Bulldogs played “keepings off” but used their HANDS to do so. Our handball game is as good as I’ve ever seen – only Geelong’s circa 2007 go close – and it is a beautiful thing, footy’s version of tiki-taka.

I love the “Men of Mayhem” forward squeeze. The press from the front. The way Wood or Hamling or Morris or Biggs always get a fist in.

There are other elements of this Bulldogs team I love. I’ve never felt so comfortable when the opposition team get an inside 50. The defence is so organised, composed, committed. Even in the days of Lake-Hargrave-Gilbee-Morris-Williams it wasn’t this good.

The siren went. The moment I’d coveted longer than anything else in life had been realised.

As I arrived downstairs to meet Jake near the boundary line, Dougie Hawkins waved to the below crowd from level 2. He was crying, of course. He wasn’t the only one (for the record, I actually saw plenty more tears the week prior in Sydney).

I’ve rarely seen a man with an ability to choose the right words for the right moments quite like Bevo. He gave his medal to Bob Murphy. And the tears started again. Seconds later, Murphy and Easton Wood held that ******* cup.

The players did a lap, posed for selfies, ran around, stood on the fence. Jordan Roughead, a Bulldogs fan since childhood, wore a red, white and blue scarf. He’d just lived a hundred thousand dreams.

Tom Liberatore spoke about winning an Ashes test match, making a ton and tonking Colin Miller.

A couple of people pitch invaded.

We couldn’t get match tickets all together for obvious reasons, so post-game, one after the other, my extended Bulldogs family, OUR extended Bulldogs family, including yourself, met up and hugged and struggled to know what to say or do.

We piled onto the G. The Living End performed as the sun set over the ground. Roll on! Roll on! We felt higher than any drug could make us. A conga line of about a hundred made its way around. A conga line on the same blades of grass where the Western Bulldogs had won the premiership just over an hour prior.

We danced ridiculously. The team, still in their playing kits more than 2 hours after the game, came out like rock stars, with the ground darkened and flash lights on the stage.

I literally kissed the turf as I made my way off.

I saw your mum, who has hardly missed a Dogs game for 55 years and doubted whether this Day would come.

We went back to Beer Deluxe. There must have been 500 Bulldogs fans there partying. Plenty were singing. CAMPIONE, CAMPIONE! People danced on chairs and tables and hugged and bought drinks for strangers.

The CORDY 1 GRIFFEN NIL chant started with 3 of us. Within minutes, 50 had joined in.

The best tasting cider ever was followed by the best tasting KFC ever.

Jake and I got a cab to Footscray. The cabbie was a champion. He let us plug my phone in and play tunes at full blast. He basically urged us to wind the windows down and ******* bask in it. Dogs fans were everywhere. We got him to drive around, past the Whitten Oval, then to Yarraville.

They weren’t letting any more people into the Railway Hotel so we made do with a street party which can only be described as Loose. People drank and sang on the street.

It was now around 1am. We caught a train a few stops further west. The carriage was going off.

We could still hear people singing. We joined in. Jake and I had our last drinks at a pub whilst watching the end of the replay and got a tactical 4-5 hours sleep before heading to the Whitten Oval the next day.

30,000 turned up FFS, to a suburban ground. Mind blowing. We saw the cup lifted again and got photos and hugs with a sobbing Douglas James Hawkins. Was this even real life?

How good was the most captivating month of our lives. I think all of us became increasingly unproductive as the finals "Cup run" went on. The amount of bandwidth I must have used reading woof.net and Big Footy nearly every day…

How good is it that we lost one of the great modern finals last year, a shootout against Adelaide, and Beveridge realised we couldn’t win a flag by not bothering about defence, so he adapted.

Less than two years ago, Griffen and McCartney were still at the club and we’d just come off finishes of 15th, 15th and 14th.

How good was beating both of last year’s grand finalists in the finals series.

How good is being the only Victorian club to win the flag winning two interstate finals.

We have roughly 400 games less experience than Collingwood’s famously young premiership from 2010.

How good is the symbolism of scoring 89 points in both the preliminary and grand finals, given the Fightback of 27 years ago and all that symbolism.

How good is it that Michael Talia isn’t a premiership player.

How good was seeing our team win as many finals this year as we did for the entire 1999-2015 period.

I wonder what Shaun Higgins did on Saturday.

Remember how we hadn’t won two consecutive finals since 1961. We’ve now won 4.

How crazy and ridiculous is it that Dale Morris played the entire finals series with two broken vertebrae in his back.

How good is winning a flag before some of those other clubs, who we hopefully won’t be grouped in with so much anymore.

How good is winning on the last Saturday in September and the first Saturday in October.

Teams have had better seasons we did this year, but there is a strong argument that no team has put together a better 4 weeks of footy than the Dogs just have.

Winning four Knock-Out finals, three as the away team and one on neutral turf: Wow.

We’ll probably see another flag in our lifetime but never one like 2016.

How good is having the shortest premiership drought in the AFL.

How good is “Why Not Us?”, the club’s finals motto, which may one day sit alongside the famous "Shop Early" from 1954, if it doesn’t already.

In a way this was a triumph shared by Australia, and we’re a lot of people’s second favourite team. I love my friends and their congratulations meant a lot. It’s also been said that the Dogs this year “saved footy”. The sentiment is nice. But if we keep winning, we’ll be envied. If we win another flag in this era, I feel like it will be different; enjoyed by us and us only. Isn’t that something to look forward to?

How good was having The Best Day Of My Life twice in the space of 8 days (not kidding)*
*marriage and childbirth aside, for some of you

How good is 3 Teams, 1 Club. Champs of Australia, Victoria and the Women’s game.

How good were Picken and JJ and The Bont and Hamling and Zaine Cordy and Dahlhaus and co in the finals series.

The Drought Breakers: No matter where they end up, or what happens from here, those 22 are instant legends in the western suburbs of Melbourne, and will be forever.

How good is it that the flag actually wagged.

I’ll leave the last words to a man who can actually write, Martin Flanagan: “They hit change way back, in the 1950s, when the first wave of post-war migration hit the western suburbs, forever changing its demography. The Dogs have ridden those waves, emerging as something exciting and new and in sync with the future… It was the loudest grand final I can recall… Hawthorn won the three previous premierships by being deeply about what they were doing. This was altogether different. This was a team that didn’t know what it couldn’t do”.

**** me! Dannnnnnnnnn ... you have a challanger. lol

Mouse scroller broke half way down... but i believed and went the old school side scroller to take glory

 

[HiReception]

I'd like DVDs of all finals to be available in a 4-pack

Would just like to inform although it may have been mentioned already
I called up Doncaster AFL Store regarding Grand Final DVD as it's one of the only things I really want to get a hold of for eternity. They weren't sure if they'd get restock on it if and when it would sell out but the man I was conversing with told me they were going to get a special 'Victory Package' Including all the finals and season highlights, would go for ~$100-$120
For those holding out for such a package, that's what I currently know

There will be a box set of the four finals. They've started releasing them as a "Victory Pack", and though it's not on the club website yet, you can now pre-order them from the ABC Shop: https://shop.abc.net.au/products/afl-premiers-2016-victory-4dvd

(Incidentally they've also made ones for Adelaide in 1997 and 1998; I know this because living there, I have to walk past them to get to the registers at JB Hi-Fi and it would always give me the shits )

Did Roy and hg really cover the game and where can I hear it?

Right here - I listened to it on the flight back, great stuff! http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/content/s4547783.htm

 

[Wizard17]

It took me half a minute to scroll past that monster

 

[fronkalicious]

Has anyone sighted King Harold?? Dying to hear from him.

You'll all also be very pleased to know that the swannies fans around the streets of Sydney are wildly bitching about the umpiring and the biased media coverage.

Some have even taken to siding with GWS fans and believe the umpires conspired against both Sydney teams when we played them.

It's truly glorious.