Draft Pick
Cancelled
- Jun 17, 2004
- 2,551
- 3,591
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Western Bulldogs
Seriously are people seriously trying to say that Scully should have been paid a 50 for Jj being in the "protected zone"
-
AFLW 2024 - Round 10 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
What They're Saying - The Bulldogs Media Thread - Part 2
- Thread starter Metal
- Start date
- Tagged users None
- Status
Draft Pick
Cancelled
- Jun 17, 2004
- 2,551
- 3,591
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Western Bulldogs
Yep.
Clarko let himself down by bagging umps and degrading the Collingwood 4 peat team.
Undid his good work by coming into the rooms etc
- May 11, 2007
- 2,420
- 2,442
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Gold Coast Suns, Charlotte Bobcats
I thought it was 50. Very lucky to get away with it! There was also a throw from Picken after his smother, leading to Macrae's goal.
Some things just went our way at crucial moments and I don't mind at all!
Bont2Bruce
Ready to rumble
- Mar 15, 2012
- 11,242
- 26,285
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Footscray, Melbourne City
Western Bulldogs get down to serious business after emotional preliminary final win
MARK ROBINSON, Herald Sun
an hour ago
THE tears have dried, the hugging has stopped and now it’s down to the serious business.
It’s been serious throughout September, but nothing quite like what’s going to unravel this week and, more importantly, what’s going to unfold at the MCG on Saturday afternoon.
First it was West Coast on the road, then the Hawks at the ‘G and penultimately Greater Western Sydney on its own turf.
That’s serious football from the Western Bulldogs.
And serious emotion.
How can anyone not be enveloped by the warmth and excitement of an underdog? Not a Johnny-come-lately underdog, but an underdog for most of its existence.
Bob Murphy celebrates the preliminary final win with Easton Wood.
The battlers from the west won the flag in 1954 and played in the 1961 Grand Final. What has followed has been 55 years in the wilderness.
Carlton’s Jack Elliott once called them tragic. He was half right and wholly disrespectful. But now the tables have turned. The Blues have been despairing since the turn of the century and the tragics are playing off for the premiership.
The scenes after the Bulldogs and Giants match on Saturday night is what sport is all about. Yes, it’s about winning and losing, but it’s mainly about people.
Hawthorn fans would look at the Bulldogs and wonder what all the fuss was about. It’s only a prelim, they’d say.
But it’s more than that.
Go ask a Bulldog fan how they feel.
For them it’s everything and, well, everything. Most of all it’s about loyalty and love. It’s about all those days in the outer and in the cold, wondering, hoping that one day, they too would get to experience what so many others have before them — Grand Final week.
The scenes on Saturday night gave you tingles.
Bulldogs celebrate after beating the Giants on Saturday night.
Players and officials crying and hugging is not the norm in the second last week of September and watching former Bulldogs great Tony Liberatore wrapping the club’s vice-president Susan Alberti in his arms in the grandstands was akin to watching a mother and son reunited after 30 years.
President Peter Gordon was front and centre. He hugged the coach, Bob Murphy, the players and the fence post at the top of the race before breaking down in tears inside the rooms. He is Bulldog through and through.
Then there was Bob Murphy. He stopped crying and cheering about 10pm on Saturday night, we’re told, and could barely lift his arms he was so sore. Mass hugging does that.
Of course this can’t be about Bob, but this journey from the Bulldogs, overcoming challenge after challenge, has Bob as its poster boy.
He is the spirit of Luke Beveridge’s message.
And the players? It’s difficult not to think everything is coming together for them.
All of them had dreamt of playing AFL, but none of them would have imagined they would be the ones representing the Western Bulldogs, representing all of its history, on a Grand Final day.
But, to dream it and achieve it is something else.
Clay Smith kicked four goals.
Marcus Bontempelli starred in the midfield.
The emotion will be carried with them this week and you wonder how Beveridge will deal with it. Use it? Park it? It is there and it’s real, so surely he embraces it.
You also wonder how Sydney coach John Longmire will approach it.
He’s coaching a team against a fairytale which has millions of followers.
The Swans are Sydney’s team, but the Bulldogs will be Australia’s team.
But does it really matter? Will have any effect on mindset? Will it mean the Dogs run and tackle and pressure better than the Swans just because they are everyone’s darlings?
Longmire will be asked about it at his press conference today and you can expect him to offer the cliche’s favourite cliche: We can only control what we can control.
It’s all business for Longmire and the Swans as opposed to it being all adventure for the Bulldogs.
Sport is at its best when it throws up this kind of theatre.
Leicester City won the Premier League last season against the rich big boys, and who can forget the Boston Red Sox breaking the Curse of the Bambino when they won the World Series of baseball in 2004 for the first time in 86 years.
They are the life moments that are good for the soul, as Murphy would say.
The game itself promises plenty.
Both teams are relentless with their approach, so a highly contested affair is a given.
The Swans, however, are a touch brow-beaten. Aliir Aliir is in doubt with a knee injury, which poses a severe problem at the back, Callum Mills still has hamstring complaint, but the expectation is Jarrad McVeigh will get to the line.
Maybe Ted Richards, who will replace Aliir if he doesn’t get up, will forge a fairy tale of his own in what would be his final game of football.
The Swans will start strong favourites.
Buddy Franklin, Dan Hannebery, Josh Kennedy, Luke Parker Isaac Heeney, Tom Mitchell, Kieren Jack and Heath Grundy lead the all-Star cast.
They’ll go up against the likes Zaine Cordy (10 games), Josh Dunkley (16), Toby McLean (18), Joel Hamling (22), Tom Boyd (28), Caleb Daniel (33), Fletcher Roberts (36), Shane Biggs (41) and Clay Smith (46), just pups in the whole scheme of things.
And the Swans have a bunch of kids of their own; Xavier Richards (11 games), Sam Naismith (12), Aliir (13), Tom Papley (19), George Hewitt (23), Zak Jones (30) and Heeney (37).
It makes you think the excuse from some coaches, that they have so many players under 50 games, is nothing but hot air.
These kids are doing it, fairytale or not.
MARK ROBINSON, Herald Sun
an hour ago
THE tears have dried, the hugging has stopped and now it’s down to the serious business.
It’s been serious throughout September, but nothing quite like what’s going to unravel this week and, more importantly, what’s going to unfold at the MCG on Saturday afternoon.
First it was West Coast on the road, then the Hawks at the ‘G and penultimately Greater Western Sydney on its own turf.
That’s serious football from the Western Bulldogs.
And serious emotion.
How can anyone not be enveloped by the warmth and excitement of an underdog? Not a Johnny-come-lately underdog, but an underdog for most of its existence.
Bob Murphy celebrates the preliminary final win with Easton Wood.
The battlers from the west won the flag in 1954 and played in the 1961 Grand Final. What has followed has been 55 years in the wilderness.
Carlton’s Jack Elliott once called them tragic. He was half right and wholly disrespectful. But now the tables have turned. The Blues have been despairing since the turn of the century and the tragics are playing off for the premiership.
The scenes after the Bulldogs and Giants match on Saturday night is what sport is all about. Yes, it’s about winning and losing, but it’s mainly about people.
Hawthorn fans would look at the Bulldogs and wonder what all the fuss was about. It’s only a prelim, they’d say.
But it’s more than that.
Go ask a Bulldog fan how they feel.
For them it’s everything and, well, everything. Most of all it’s about loyalty and love. It’s about all those days in the outer and in the cold, wondering, hoping that one day, they too would get to experience what so many others have before them — Grand Final week.
The scenes on Saturday night gave you tingles.
Bulldogs celebrate after beating the Giants on Saturday night.
Players and officials crying and hugging is not the norm in the second last week of September and watching former Bulldogs great Tony Liberatore wrapping the club’s vice-president Susan Alberti in his arms in the grandstands was akin to watching a mother and son reunited after 30 years.
President Peter Gordon was front and centre. He hugged the coach, Bob Murphy, the players and the fence post at the top of the race before breaking down in tears inside the rooms. He is Bulldog through and through.
Then there was Bob Murphy. He stopped crying and cheering about 10pm on Saturday night, we’re told, and could barely lift his arms he was so sore. Mass hugging does that.
Of course this can’t be about Bob, but this journey from the Bulldogs, overcoming challenge after challenge, has Bob as its poster boy.
He is the spirit of Luke Beveridge’s message.
And the players? It’s difficult not to think everything is coming together for them.
All of them had dreamt of playing AFL, but none of them would have imagined they would be the ones representing the Western Bulldogs, representing all of its history, on a Grand Final day.
But, to dream it and achieve it is something else.
Clay Smith kicked four goals.
Marcus Bontempelli starred in the midfield.
The emotion will be carried with them this week and you wonder how Beveridge will deal with it. Use it? Park it? It is there and it’s real, so surely he embraces it.
You also wonder how Sydney coach John Longmire will approach it.
He’s coaching a team against a fairytale which has millions of followers.
The Swans are Sydney’s team, but the Bulldogs will be Australia’s team.
But does it really matter? Will have any effect on mindset? Will it mean the Dogs run and tackle and pressure better than the Swans just because they are everyone’s darlings?
Longmire will be asked about it at his press conference today and you can expect him to offer the cliche’s favourite cliche: We can only control what we can control.
It’s all business for Longmire and the Swans as opposed to it being all adventure for the Bulldogs.
Sport is at its best when it throws up this kind of theatre.
Leicester City won the Premier League last season against the rich big boys, and who can forget the Boston Red Sox breaking the Curse of the Bambino when they won the World Series of baseball in 2004 for the first time in 86 years.
They are the life moments that are good for the soul, as Murphy would say.
The game itself promises plenty.
Both teams are relentless with their approach, so a highly contested affair is a given.
The Swans, however, are a touch brow-beaten. Aliir Aliir is in doubt with a knee injury, which poses a severe problem at the back, Callum Mills still has hamstring complaint, but the expectation is Jarrad McVeigh will get to the line.
Maybe Ted Richards, who will replace Aliir if he doesn’t get up, will forge a fairy tale of his own in what would be his final game of football.
The Swans will start strong favourites.
Buddy Franklin, Dan Hannebery, Josh Kennedy, Luke Parker Isaac Heeney, Tom Mitchell, Kieren Jack and Heath Grundy lead the all-Star cast.
They’ll go up against the likes Zaine Cordy (10 games), Josh Dunkley (16), Toby McLean (18), Joel Hamling (22), Tom Boyd (28), Caleb Daniel (33), Fletcher Roberts (36), Shane Biggs (41) and Clay Smith (46), just pups in the whole scheme of things.
And the Swans have a bunch of kids of their own; Xavier Richards (11 games), Sam Naismith (12), Aliir (13), Tom Papley (19), George Hewitt (23), Zak Jones (30) and Heeney (37).
It makes you think the excuse from some coaches, that they have so many players under 50 games, is nothing but hot air.
These kids are doing it, fairytale or not.
- Oct 2, 2002
- 4,404
- 4,393
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Arsenal
First half of the year interpretation it was clearly 50
- Oct 2, 2002
- 4,404
- 4,393
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Arsenal
agree particular by tomilison
Draft Pick
Cancelled
- Jun 17, 2004
- 2,551
- 3,591
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Western Bulldogs
The 50
Thats the thing. I had forgotten that the rule had actually been brought in, as it hasn't been paid for weeks and weeks. On that basis it should be play on with very little argument. Besides all that it is a stupid rule. Was Scullys kick impeded by Jj
There were no less than 20 either way all game. Not one was called.
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
- Oct 2, 2002
- 4,404
- 4,393
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Arsenal
Absolutely not
He had played on by the time JJ had entered the zone.
Norm De Guerre
Left of the dial.
Veteran
10k Posts
Western Bulldogs - Bailey Dale Player Sponsor 2021
Western Bulldogs - Ed Richards Player Sponsor 2021
Western Bulldogs - Ed Richards 2019 Player Sponsor
Western Bulldogs - Bailey Dale 2019 Player Sponsor
Western Bulldogs - Mitch Honeychurch Player Sponsor 2018
Western Bulldogs - Nathan Mullenger-McHugh Player Sponsor 2018
- Mar 27, 2004
- 12,530
- 37,972
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Australian Farnarkling XI
Perspective.
My already high admiration for the man just grew 10 fold.
Western Bulldog Clay Smith's tears for fallen friend
Around the happy tears shed by Western Bulldogs people as their team booked a place in a historic grand final were those of a 23-year-old Bulldog player grappling with having his world rocked by a close-range tragedy.
Out of protectiveness, the Dogs concealed the details before their spine-tangling six-point preliminary final win over Greater Western Sydney. But within a camp that could ill-afford to lose yet another trooper, Clay Smith was hurting.
Plays of the AFL preliminary finals
The Swans start in a hurry and cruise past Geelong while in Sydney the Bulldogs win one of the all time great preliminary finals against GWS to reach their first grand final since 1961.
Smith knows what it's like to be brought to his knees, having overcome three knee reconstructions. But this history of physical challenge was put into fresh perspective when Smith learnt - five days before the Dogs met the Giants in a match in which he eventually proved a match-winner – about the death of one of his closest mates.
Dale Walkinshaw, the prankster sidekick with whom he'd gone through high school, was in a road accident in Darwin on September 15. His AFL footballer mate was informed of the crash - by mindful mutual friends - only after the Dogs had made it through their second final the following day..
In a coma for four days, Walkinshaw was on life support until last Monday. Before the machines keeping him alive were switched off, Smith had asked his coach, Luke Beveridge whether, after Saturday's preliminary final, he could fly to Darwin to see his friend.
Until he learnt, later last Monday afternoon, that Walkinshaw had passed away, Smith had naturally wrestled with feeling not only helpless but too far away.
When he left the field at Spotless Stadium on Saturday night – the Bulldogs grand finalists, he a four-goal hero - Smith was a raw mix of big emotions.
"It has been a different week," he told Fairfax Media in the rooms afterwards.
Clay Smith and Caleb Daniel embrace after the preliminary final. Photo: AFL Media/Getty Images
"I lost one of my best mates on Monday. It was pretty tough. He was in a car accident. That was a tough start to the week. He was in a car accident last Thursday. He was left in a coma and he didn't pull through and he left us on Monday. He'd just moved up there. It's just so unfortunate.
"We grew up together. We went right through high school together. He came up to Melbourne once I moved here, he came with all the boys. We've been mates for 10 or 12 years.
"I don't know if he helped me out and helped me kick straight": Clay Smith dedicated his performance to Dale. Photo: Getty Images
"I didn't know he'd been in the accident until after the game last Friday. The boys didn't tell me until after the game … they weren't sure how he was going to be.
"I was going to fly up there probably after the game this week if he was still with us but …"
Clay Smith celebrates a preliminary final goal with his teammates. Photo: Getty Images
With lips trembling, Smith couldn't, and didn't need to, finish the sentence.
Though some members of the wider Bulldogs team did not know of Smith's loss until they arrived at the ground on Saturday, Walkinshaw's passing was the reason the entire team – players, coaches and support staff - wore black armbands.
Smith says coach Luke Beveridge has been "very supportive". Photo: Getty Images
Mid-week, Smith got together with close friends away from footy to start the group grieving.
"A couple of us caught up on Monday night after we found out the news. My fiancé, Sarah, has been unreal. She knew him," he said.
"Then on Wednesday there were probably 25 or 30 of us who just got together. Got around each other. You can't really do too much, it's just a tough time.
"We had a barbecue and tried to tell some stories and have a laugh and remember the good times. That put me at ease a little bit.
"He'll live with me forever. He won a bet against me about a year and a half ago and I ended up getting his initials tattooed on my arse. So his initials are there, he's going to be with me forever."
What was the bet? In a private corner of the otherwise ebullient Bulldogs change rooms, Smith cracked a smile and chuckled at the memory.
"Trying to chip a golf ball into a bucket in the backyard having a beer," he said. "And he got it in so I'm branded for life.
"What I'll remember most is probably just his little smart-arse attitude. He was such a respectful kid but he was always the one up to something: he stole the hubcaps on my old Ford Falcon probably a good 10 times and I'd have to go back to the reject shop and buy them again. And I ended up spray painting the rim on his car yellow."
Smith told Beveridge about the life-and-death situation he was grappling with week ago. He checked in again last Monday to say he "wasn't in too great a state and that I was probably wanting to go up and see him if he was still with us after the Giants game.
"Then I got the news when I left the club Monday arvo," Smith said. "A couple of others at the club knew early in the week but not everyone, I just sort of tried to deal with it."
Beveridge, Smith said, "was very supportive".
To have kicked four goals in the biggest game of his life – not to mention such a milestone moment for his club – felt like some kind of crazy, otherworldly magic to Smith.
"I knew he would have been looking down, I knew he'd be proud. That game meant a lot. It meant a lot. To get through for the club, for the team, for me, and for Dale and for my mates and my family," he said.
"I don't know if he helped me out and helped me kick straight, or what he did, but that was a good one that one, and it was for him."
My already high admiration for the man just grew 10 fold.
Western Bulldog Clay Smith's tears for fallen friend
Around the happy tears shed by Western Bulldogs people as their team booked a place in a historic grand final were those of a 23-year-old Bulldog player grappling with having his world rocked by a close-range tragedy.
Out of protectiveness, the Dogs concealed the details before their spine-tangling six-point preliminary final win over Greater Western Sydney. But within a camp that could ill-afford to lose yet another trooper, Clay Smith was hurting.
Plays of the AFL preliminary finals
The Swans start in a hurry and cruise past Geelong while in Sydney the Bulldogs win one of the all time great preliminary finals against GWS to reach their first grand final since 1961.
Smith knows what it's like to be brought to his knees, having overcome three knee reconstructions. But this history of physical challenge was put into fresh perspective when Smith learnt - five days before the Dogs met the Giants in a match in which he eventually proved a match-winner – about the death of one of his closest mates.
Dale Walkinshaw, the prankster sidekick with whom he'd gone through high school, was in a road accident in Darwin on September 15. His AFL footballer mate was informed of the crash - by mindful mutual friends - only after the Dogs had made it through their second final the following day..
In a coma for four days, Walkinshaw was on life support until last Monday. Before the machines keeping him alive were switched off, Smith had asked his coach, Luke Beveridge whether, after Saturday's preliminary final, he could fly to Darwin to see his friend.
Until he learnt, later last Monday afternoon, that Walkinshaw had passed away, Smith had naturally wrestled with feeling not only helpless but too far away.
When he left the field at Spotless Stadium on Saturday night – the Bulldogs grand finalists, he a four-goal hero - Smith was a raw mix of big emotions.
"It has been a different week," he told Fairfax Media in the rooms afterwards.
Clay Smith and Caleb Daniel embrace after the preliminary final. Photo: AFL Media/Getty Images
"I lost one of my best mates on Monday. It was pretty tough. He was in a car accident. That was a tough start to the week. He was in a car accident last Thursday. He was left in a coma and he didn't pull through and he left us on Monday. He'd just moved up there. It's just so unfortunate.
"We grew up together. We went right through high school together. He came up to Melbourne once I moved here, he came with all the boys. We've been mates for 10 or 12 years.
"I don't know if he helped me out and helped me kick straight": Clay Smith dedicated his performance to Dale. Photo: Getty Images
"I didn't know he'd been in the accident until after the game last Friday. The boys didn't tell me until after the game … they weren't sure how he was going to be.
"I was going to fly up there probably after the game this week if he was still with us but …"
Clay Smith celebrates a preliminary final goal with his teammates. Photo: Getty Images
With lips trembling, Smith couldn't, and didn't need to, finish the sentence.
Though some members of the wider Bulldogs team did not know of Smith's loss until they arrived at the ground on Saturday, Walkinshaw's passing was the reason the entire team – players, coaches and support staff - wore black armbands.
Smith says coach Luke Beveridge has been "very supportive". Photo: Getty Images
Mid-week, Smith got together with close friends away from footy to start the group grieving.
"A couple of us caught up on Monday night after we found out the news. My fiancé, Sarah, has been unreal. She knew him," he said.
"Then on Wednesday there were probably 25 or 30 of us who just got together. Got around each other. You can't really do too much, it's just a tough time.
"We had a barbecue and tried to tell some stories and have a laugh and remember the good times. That put me at ease a little bit.
"He'll live with me forever. He won a bet against me about a year and a half ago and I ended up getting his initials tattooed on my arse. So his initials are there, he's going to be with me forever."
What was the bet? In a private corner of the otherwise ebullient Bulldogs change rooms, Smith cracked a smile and chuckled at the memory.
"Trying to chip a golf ball into a bucket in the backyard having a beer," he said. "And he got it in so I'm branded for life.
"What I'll remember most is probably just his little smart-arse attitude. He was such a respectful kid but he was always the one up to something: he stole the hubcaps on my old Ford Falcon probably a good 10 times and I'd have to go back to the reject shop and buy them again. And I ended up spray painting the rim on his car yellow."
Smith told Beveridge about the life-and-death situation he was grappling with week ago. He checked in again last Monday to say he "wasn't in too great a state and that I was probably wanting to go up and see him if he was still with us after the Giants game.
"Then I got the news when I left the club Monday arvo," Smith said. "A couple of others at the club knew early in the week but not everyone, I just sort of tried to deal with it."
Beveridge, Smith said, "was very supportive".
To have kicked four goals in the biggest game of his life – not to mention such a milestone moment for his club – felt like some kind of crazy, otherworldly magic to Smith.
"I knew he would have been looking down, I knew he'd be proud. That game meant a lot. It meant a lot. To get through for the club, for the team, for me, and for Dale and for my mates and my family," he said.
"I don't know if he helped me out and helped me kick straight, or what he did, but that was a good one that one, and it was for him."
"He'll live with me forever. He won a bet against me about a year and a half ago and I ended up getting his initials tattooed on my arse. So his initials are there, he's going to be with me forever."
In Repair
Team Captain
AFL
Bulldogs faithful pray for one more AFL miracle to end the wandering
It’s been 55 years since Bulldogs fans last had their day in the sun, but supporters will be fervently hoping the pilgrimage holds one last great reward
Injured skipper Robert Murphy celebrates with Marcus Bontempelli and Peter Gordon after the 2016 AFL first preliminary final. Photograph: Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images
Craig Little
“Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea.”
–Deuteronomy 34: 1-2
“I’m high on the hill
Looking over the bridge
To the MCG.”
–Paul Kelly, Leaps and Bounds
#bemorebulldog is a cultural force as much as it is a hashtag. On an otherwise unremarkable afternoon, thousands of nomadic Bulldogs supporters, usually parched this time of year, reach Spotless Stadium awaiting deliverance. Hope and hunger hangs heavy in the air.
You need more than a map to make it from Barkly Street and up the Hume Highway to Sydney’s Olympic Park. You need the optimism that comes from supporting a club that was supposed to be dormant and miserable after their captain walked out at the end of 2014 and whose coach cleaned out his locker not long after.
You need the optimism that sportswriter Charles P. Pierce describes as neither weak nor naive, but “tough and pure and earned just as clearly as any brooding existential despair.”
With less than ten minutes to go in the penultimate game of the season, brooding existential despair is in play. Time seems fungible. Is it 2016 or 1997?
Two weeks ago, before boarding a plane for Perth to play in an elimination final, Matthew Boyd said, “clearly, people don’t give us much of a chance, but we certainly don’t subscribe to that train of thought.”
Beginning his life as a Bulldog in 2001 via the second round of the Rookie Draft, the 34-year-old former captain is a three-time Charles Sutton Medallist and has been named All-Australian as many times again. But as he swings his boot at harried handball, he is staring into the darkness of a leftover dream.
There is only five-points in it, but you sense that Jonathon Patton, Rory Lobb or Toby Greene have a dagger poised near the Bulldogs’ heart. Boyd’s mid-air kick goes sideways off his boot. And lands in the arms of Jason Johannisen.
Johannisen is another Bulldogs’ rookie selection, taken 16 pickers lower and ten years after Boyd. The last time Johannisen was in Sydney he was playing his first game in ten weeks after suffering a severe hamstring injury. His goal in the dying seconds to win that game breathed life not just into the Western Bulldogs’ season, but put the fairytale in play.
Johannisen is thrilling when he has the ball, and that is how it must be for these Bulldogs. Where there was no space at Spotless Stadium, with the ball in Johannisen’s hands it is suddenly everywhere. He glides between two Giants like the wind blew him there, shifts his weight and bounces towards the wing and Marcus Bontempelli. The football rises against the sky. Its flight transcends the flaws of the kick and falls perfectly for Bontempelli whose left boot puts the Bulldogs in front by a point.
The Bulldogs have won the contested ball, won the clearances and have been inside their forward 50 more often. But it is the qualities so elusive they’re called, in the argot of sport, intangibles – the heart and soul of this club – that has them moments away from their first grand final since 1961.
It is Tom Boyd, who in his two years at the club has been more million-dollar manqué than marquee. His game is enormous, taking on and nullifying Shane Mumford after Jordan Roughead left the game with a bloody eye in the second quarter.
It is Clay Smith, who at just 23-years of age has fought back from three (three!) knee reconstructions and the intense pain of mourning a mate who died earlier in the week. His four first-half goals have made him arguably the game’s most influential player.
It is Joel Hamling, the delisted free agent who couldn’t swing a game in three years at Geelong, but who this September has taken out three of the game’s most dangerous forwards. He has held Jeremy Cameron to two kicks.
It is Tom Liberatore, who has football instincts as old as his blood and that of his father Tony, who watches his son and his Bulldogs with teeth clenched like he is biting a rope.
And it is Jack Macrae who the Bulldogs selected with the draft pick they were awarded when Callan Ward left the club to become a foundation player at the Giants. Ward ended the game on the bench with concussion courtesy of an errant Zaine Cordy knee, while Macrae effectively ended it with a mark and goal that let go a roar from the travelling Bulldogs’ faithful so loud that it presumably registered on New South Wales’ air-defence radar.
“We have written our own history here tonight,” says Bontempelli. That it will be harder to write again on Saturday is a truth that’s self-evidence is as brutal as the Swans’ midfield.
On Friday night, the midfield murderers’ row of Isaac Heeney, Tom Mitchell, Luke Parker, Dan Hannebery and Josh Kennedy made Geelong look ragged along the seams, bursting them open in 26-minutes of brilliant football.
The only thing likely to distract Luke Beveridge more than a thousand media requests and the Swans’ midfield is Sydney’s $10m dollar man, Lance Franklin. While ‘Buddy’ plays like he has a childlike faith in his own ability, his game is cerebral. He stimulated the Swans’ surge on Friday night, kicking two first-half goals and setting up three more.
What Johannisen is to the Western Bulldogs, Gary Rohan is to the Swans. Rohan’s run was all the more incredible when you consider he was recovering from an injury that six days ago appeared season ending. Ironically, it was the steel in his leg as a result of previous injuries that may have prevented further damage. The scars at the front of Rohan’s mind, however, will be the ones from the 2014 Grand Final when Sydney ran smack bang into the middle of Hawthorn exceptionalism. The Swans were not only defeated, they were disgraced. Despite being one of Sydney’s best, Rohan admits his nerves were shot.
“I thought I had an idea of what to expect back then, but Hawthorn knew what was going on,” he said. “My nerves will be a lot better this time.”
This year Rohan and his Sydney teammates run into a side whose momentum is 120 minutes away from being legitimately biblical.
On Saturday at the MCG, the Bulldogs will emerge from a wilderness that has Moses and the Israelites covered by 15 years. Not even football’s most vociferous critics can dismiss the cultural (and for many religious) significance of this year’s grand final. The question is does the shining promise of the Bulldogs have one more miracle in it?
Bulldogs faithful pray for one more AFL miracle to end the wandering
It’s been 55 years since Bulldogs fans last had their day in the sun, but supporters will be fervently hoping the pilgrimage holds one last great reward
Injured skipper Robert Murphy celebrates with Marcus Bontempelli and Peter Gordon after the 2016 AFL first preliminary final. Photograph: Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images
Craig Little
“Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea.”
–Deuteronomy 34: 1-2
“I’m high on the hill
Looking over the bridge
To the MCG.”
–Paul Kelly, Leaps and Bounds
#bemorebulldog is a cultural force as much as it is a hashtag. On an otherwise unremarkable afternoon, thousands of nomadic Bulldogs supporters, usually parched this time of year, reach Spotless Stadium awaiting deliverance. Hope and hunger hangs heavy in the air.
You need more than a map to make it from Barkly Street and up the Hume Highway to Sydney’s Olympic Park. You need the optimism that comes from supporting a club that was supposed to be dormant and miserable after their captain walked out at the end of 2014 and whose coach cleaned out his locker not long after.
You need the optimism that sportswriter Charles P. Pierce describes as neither weak nor naive, but “tough and pure and earned just as clearly as any brooding existential despair.”
With less than ten minutes to go in the penultimate game of the season, brooding existential despair is in play. Time seems fungible. Is it 2016 or 1997?
Two weeks ago, before boarding a plane for Perth to play in an elimination final, Matthew Boyd said, “clearly, people don’t give us much of a chance, but we certainly don’t subscribe to that train of thought.”
Beginning his life as a Bulldog in 2001 via the second round of the Rookie Draft, the 34-year-old former captain is a three-time Charles Sutton Medallist and has been named All-Australian as many times again. But as he swings his boot at harried handball, he is staring into the darkness of a leftover dream.
There is only five-points in it, but you sense that Jonathon Patton, Rory Lobb or Toby Greene have a dagger poised near the Bulldogs’ heart. Boyd’s mid-air kick goes sideways off his boot. And lands in the arms of Jason Johannisen.
Johannisen is another Bulldogs’ rookie selection, taken 16 pickers lower and ten years after Boyd. The last time Johannisen was in Sydney he was playing his first game in ten weeks after suffering a severe hamstring injury. His goal in the dying seconds to win that game breathed life not just into the Western Bulldogs’ season, but put the fairytale in play.
Johannisen is thrilling when he has the ball, and that is how it must be for these Bulldogs. Where there was no space at Spotless Stadium, with the ball in Johannisen’s hands it is suddenly everywhere. He glides between two Giants like the wind blew him there, shifts his weight and bounces towards the wing and Marcus Bontempelli. The football rises against the sky. Its flight transcends the flaws of the kick and falls perfectly for Bontempelli whose left boot puts the Bulldogs in front by a point.
The Bulldogs have won the contested ball, won the clearances and have been inside their forward 50 more often. But it is the qualities so elusive they’re called, in the argot of sport, intangibles – the heart and soul of this club – that has them moments away from their first grand final since 1961.
It is Tom Boyd, who in his two years at the club has been more million-dollar manqué than marquee. His game is enormous, taking on and nullifying Shane Mumford after Jordan Roughead left the game with a bloody eye in the second quarter.
It is Clay Smith, who at just 23-years of age has fought back from three (three!) knee reconstructions and the intense pain of mourning a mate who died earlier in the week. His four first-half goals have made him arguably the game’s most influential player.
It is Joel Hamling, the delisted free agent who couldn’t swing a game in three years at Geelong, but who this September has taken out three of the game’s most dangerous forwards. He has held Jeremy Cameron to two kicks.
It is Tom Liberatore, who has football instincts as old as his blood and that of his father Tony, who watches his son and his Bulldogs with teeth clenched like he is biting a rope.
And it is Jack Macrae who the Bulldogs selected with the draft pick they were awarded when Callan Ward left the club to become a foundation player at the Giants. Ward ended the game on the bench with concussion courtesy of an errant Zaine Cordy knee, while Macrae effectively ended it with a mark and goal that let go a roar from the travelling Bulldogs’ faithful so loud that it presumably registered on New South Wales’ air-defence radar.
“We have written our own history here tonight,” says Bontempelli. That it will be harder to write again on Saturday is a truth that’s self-evidence is as brutal as the Swans’ midfield.
On Friday night, the midfield murderers’ row of Isaac Heeney, Tom Mitchell, Luke Parker, Dan Hannebery and Josh Kennedy made Geelong look ragged along the seams, bursting them open in 26-minutes of brilliant football.
The only thing likely to distract Luke Beveridge more than a thousand media requests and the Swans’ midfield is Sydney’s $10m dollar man, Lance Franklin. While ‘Buddy’ plays like he has a childlike faith in his own ability, his game is cerebral. He stimulated the Swans’ surge on Friday night, kicking two first-half goals and setting up three more.
What Johannisen is to the Western Bulldogs, Gary Rohan is to the Swans. Rohan’s run was all the more incredible when you consider he was recovering from an injury that six days ago appeared season ending. Ironically, it was the steel in his leg as a result of previous injuries that may have prevented further damage. The scars at the front of Rohan’s mind, however, will be the ones from the 2014 Grand Final when Sydney ran smack bang into the middle of Hawthorn exceptionalism. The Swans were not only defeated, they were disgraced. Despite being one of Sydney’s best, Rohan admits his nerves were shot.
“I thought I had an idea of what to expect back then, but Hawthorn knew what was going on,” he said. “My nerves will be a lot better this time.”
This year Rohan and his Sydney teammates run into a side whose momentum is 120 minutes away from being legitimately biblical.
On Saturday at the MCG, the Bulldogs will emerge from a wilderness that has Moses and the Israelites covered by 15 years. Not even football’s most vociferous critics can dismiss the cultural (and for many religious) significance of this year’s grand final. The question is does the shining promise of the Bulldogs have one more miracle in it?
There were also a free for a head high as JJ attempted to collect a ground ball in the square that didn't go our way resulting in Giant goal. Also what about all the punches and elbows to the face. Whitfield taking a shot at McRae. The bigger story is that the Giants thuggish play didn't work despite not being rewarded 50's/frees that were obviously there
- Oct 7, 2012
- 15,839
- 24,198
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
That is a good article with some good writing - on JJ, "He glides between two Giants like the wind blew him there,..."
"It is Tom Liberatore, who has football instincts as old as his blood and that of his father Tony, who watches his son and his Bulldogs with teeth clenched like he is biting a rope."
"It is Tom Liberatore, who has football instincts as old as his blood and that of his father Tony, who watches his son and his Bulldogs with teeth clenched like he is biting a rope."
- Dec 21, 2005
- 23,638
- 14,971
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
Hahah the umps. When you win its sore losers, when you lose its clearly terrible umpiring and the whole thing is rigged. Footy...Gotta love it.
Yeah, there'll be a do-over this week, and the week after, until GWS wins.
- Oct 29, 2013
- 2,186
- 3,042
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Spurs, Man U, Habs, Patriots, Cubs
Spot on. But of course only the decisions right at the death are looked at. Go through the whole game and you will find plenty that cost us goals which means we would have been further in front and wouldn't be worrying about this one. There are some seriously jealous people out there atm....jealous of seeing us experience success finally. Leigh Mathews had a slight crack at us on game day for celebrating the win. These people are mostly joy kills who get angry seeing others happy.
- Oct 7, 2012
- 15,839
- 24,198
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Oct 29, 2013
- 2,186
- 3,042
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Spurs, Man U, Habs, Patriots, Cubs
If the past few weeks have shown us anything, it's that this group is seriously resilient and determined.
Yeah its me that isn't. Getting nervous now!
- Oct 29, 2013
- 2,186
- 3,042
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Spurs, Man U, Habs, Patriots, Cubs
Carey was another saying it. These people just don't understand what we have been through and how much it means to us. Screw them indeed
- Status
