​'Let's be brutally honest, all I really do is play football. I, for one, am still unable to see why I'd be viewed as anything other than a footballer. Yes, footballers are viewed as role models by young kids but unless the kids know the player personally, this to me is silly." Chris Judd, 2005.

I wasn't all that surprised when this somewhat cold and aloof statement was made, not being at all a fan of the person who made it. Though it was perfectly in accord with the history of his actions and choices  during his football career (Visy 'ambassadorship', anyone?).

However I vehemently disagreed. As a smarmy politician might say, "I don't accept the premise of the question."

It's always been just as important to me that our players are people whose public profile makes us proud as that they are good players. I've remained blindly convinced that we have more than our fair share of men of great character, filtering out anything that doesn't fit the narrative. I admit that this has sometimes involved some head-in-the-sand moments. I've been known to perform increasingly desperate contortions to find likeability in those with blemishes (normally, of course, these have been imported to our club, so  their bona fides are already in question). I had to take this to ridiculous extremes when Jason Akermanis, - who I'd always detested - came to our club. I was forced into the most feeble of attempts to find a reason to cheer for him.: 'Apparently he learnt sign language to communicate with his wife's deaf parents.'

He was never 'one of us' all the same.

Around the time that Judd made his statement panning the notion of players as role models, our captain was Luke Darcy. Six rounds into the 2005 season, he injured his knee, requiring a full reconstruction. It is part of Western Bulldogs folklore that footy heartbreak struck him down again; in the last training run of the pre-season, days before Christamas, Darce re-injured that knee, and missed that season as well.I have several treasured memories of Darce which are separate from his exploits on the field (though as a 200-gamer, Sutton medal winner, and leader of our goalkicking one year, these were substantial). The first was of on a day when I was at the club's Barkly Street home to pick up tickets and spotted our spindly new recruit. I smiled when I saw his extremely tall frame somehow awkwardly wedged into a suzuki-style car; endearingly, young Darcy was still driving on  P-plates.

There was another occasion, 2003, when the Dogs were having  a wretched season.. We were playing Fremantle at Docklands and in  the first half our team was putting on one of those embarrassingly bad efforts that makes you question exactly why you bother. (That's before I started this blog to try and find out). Though I wasn't exactly enjoying the display, I began noticing with horror, a noise building from the fans as the dejected players trudged off at half-time. It was a noise fortunately rare from our fans, but excruciating nonetheless: the unmistakable and ugly sound of booing. I saw Luke looking up in puzzlement perhaps expecting that the wrath of the fans was, more traditionally, directed at the umpires or some unpopular member of the opposition. Recognition slowly dawned: it was condemnation of himself and his team-mates.

I'm afraid this didn't prove to be some sort of galvanising turning point for the year. It maybe (I've blanked a lot of it out) wasn't even the low point of the season, considering the Dogs won just three games for the year, and added to our wooden spoon collection.

Such miserable moments added a layer of poignancy  in Luke Darcy's famous words in 2016. He was then a commentator and it was the final seconds  of our match against the Acronyms: Throwing aside any pretence of objectivity, his voice wobbly with emotion; he spoke for all the fans, all the unfulfilled players, as he said: 'I've been waiting all my life to say this: the Bulldogs are into a Grand Final!.' Darce had ,played in only two finals wins in his long and celebrated career. He was there for The Preliminary Final that (still) Must not be Named. And the Other Preliminary That Wasn't Very Good Either. 

However  my strongest memory of Darce is from an encounter off field. Our family arrived for a match, for some reason we had access to underground parking. Luke Darcy was still recuperating from one of those knee injuries; he parked near us (needless to say, in a more salubrious vehicle than that long-ago clown-sized car). As we gathered our assorted scarves and possessions from the car, we saw a family, decked out in Bulldog paraphernalia, shyly approach Luke as he got out of his car. Their young son was in a wheelchair; his gaunt frame and bald head told a tale, of serious  illness borne.  Our captain  reached out to shake the boy's hand; the parents hurriedly explained that their young son could no longer see. Luke, visibly moved, bent down to speak to the lad at his level, while the boy beamed with delight to hear from his hero. My pride at witnessing  this moment of kindness - away from any cameras, no contrived media event -  could not have been any greater if Luke Darcy had been - but he of course  never was - standing on the MCG dais as a premiership winning captain.

Last week we saw the retirement of one of those who did get to stand on that dais  while the red, white and blue confetti rained down. Jordan Roughead rucked that day, as he did in each of our four finals. His participation in the grand final was in doubt right to the day, after he sustained bleeding to the eye in the epic preliminary final win and spent the week in a darkened room awaiting the go-ahead from the medical experts.

He was one of those less celebrated Bulldogs who was important at key moments: wheeling around and roosting a 50-metre plus goal  to thwart a threatened Eagles comeback in the third quarter of the elimination final. In the Grand Final, in those frantic moments when a goal from Jason Johanisen was overruled, and we all gulped with that 'this-could-only-happen-to-us' panicky terror; the kickout from the point was marked, in a calm and composed way, by Roughie. We were safe.

It was not just these achievements, though, for which we give thanks to Roughie. He has also been known for his community leadership, his support for legalising gay marriage, and his stances against racism.

And in 2017, Jordan turned up to the Brownlow with an unexpected guest. He brought along a young man called (I'm not making this up) Darcy, who had found himself homeless as a teenager. While the likes of Chris Judd's wife Rebecca preened themselves in readiness of the red carpet, Darcy was being taken by his mentor to the fitting of his first ever suit.

The Tragician loves to bask in the memory of such beautiful moments. You may have noticed, however, my efforts to airbrush out the fact that Roughie finished his career as a Magpie. That for reasons still untold, he asked to leave our club, the one that he'd barracked for as a boy. Troublingly, only a short while after the fabled premiership, he said he was 'stale' and no longer enjoyed that trip over the Westgate to arrive at his home - or had it become just his workplace, and an unpleasant one at that - at the Whitten Oval.

It doesn't really fit with my rosy fantasy of men whose character is on a par with their talent, where brotherhood and loyalty reign in a wholesome and enlightened club environment, where nasty individuals are instantly expelled rather than tolerated because of their ability. (At this point I would also like to strongly deny any "alleged" occasions where I may have risen to my feet and applauded the wizardry of Akermanis..and not just because he learnt sign language to communicate with his in-laws).

Roughie will soon be a dad for the first time - maybe I'll get to see a son or daughter  play in our colours one day. Luke Darcy is barely remembered for his playing career any more now that he is a prominent and successful media personality - rumours that he will stand for election by the Liberal Party are hastily dismissed by the Tragician as a likely - make that definite - Herald-Sun beat up. I'd prefer to look forward to the day his son Sam, who towers over even his ruckman dad, makes his debut. Because there's one thing more romantic and exciting than seeing a father-son story unfold, it's the prospect of seeing a third generation Bulldog in our colours.

On Saturday the  latest reincarnation of Our Boys - the club of Darcy and Roughead - triumphed over the Eagles. Sam Darcy's future team-mates run amok against the club where  Chris Judd won one of his Brownlows, and a premiership. No wonder Judd disavowed being a role model; the West Coast Eagles was a club of far-from-nice guys at the time.

At the ground  where last year we tasted the bitterness of Grand Final defeat, goals reined down with remarkable ease. Even defender Alex Keath scored two. More improbably the stern-faced 'Chief', cracked a smile (though not when his exuberant team-mate Aaron Naughton headbutted him in celebration). The Dogs didn't even really miss excitement machine and regular 40-possession accumulator Bailey Smith . (Mothers around Australia could have told him he'd catch a cold if he kept going out without a singlet on).

Courage, commitment and skill were on display; our footy was dazzling and ferocious. Though the opposition (which still have more than a few recent premiership players) were poor, our performance was nonetheless complete. As we racked up a 100-point victory, I remembered what, this year, has not always been apparent. our very best footy is fearsome and when (if) injuries finally abate, we could be challengers again this year.

Yet long after the footies were packed away and Bevo's Travelling All-Stars jetted out of Perth  I  was treasuring something that was greater than just a percentage boosting win. I know it  will last longer in my memory. Two little girls with serious disabilities and their family who have a passion for the Dogs got to meet the team while they were in Perth. I often think how challenging it can be for young men to handle these situations; after all, many in the community struggle to relate to, or be natural and comfortable around, illness and disability, especially in children. But Bont led his team out in more ways than one. They took to the field where the little girls, one of them bouncing for joy in her red, white and blue frilled skirt, were waiting; Bont broke into a big smile before leaning down to speak to her. Moments earlier these guys had been revving each other up in the rooms, bumping and yelling and snarling, preparing for the ferocity of 'battle'; yet now they paused to greet the little girls, to speak gently and kindly to them. They waited, and then these big strong young men carefully lifted the edge of the banner as one so Leah and Abby and their family could go through,  precious members of our Bulldog family.

In the watery Ballarat sunshine, Our Boys have tenaciously held on for a hard-fought win. Patches of scintillating footy were interspersed with struggles, mistakes and lapses. The toll of injury and illness which has severely battered our team remains evident. And, I sense, the team still hasn't recovered fully from the devastating blow to our psyche of the 2021 Grand Final loss.

Neither has the Bulldog Tragician.

But for the first time this year, we've notched up two consecutive wins, while the injury list finally begins to shrink. Five wins, five losses - all of those losses could so easily have gone the other way. 

I'm feeling cautious optimism, watching Our Boys gather near the race, celebrating the win and the 200-game milestone of Adam Treloar.

Aaron Naughton is one of those who hoist Adam onto his shoulders. The Astro-Naut had lived up to his nickname in a brilliant first half. Is there a more exhilarating sight than Aaron on song, where clumps of players in packs merely form a launching pad for him to soar, sometimes so high that he can mark the ball on his chest? You can hear, now, a distinctive sound from the crowd as we anticipate his flight, gasping when he lands safely with the ball in his mitts. Aaron hasn't lost the exuberance of kids when they first fall in love with footy; oblivious of whiteboard strategies and concepts of running patterns, zones and angles, wanting only to take speckies and kick goals.

Aaron has a swagger. Only he could really pull off the white headband look. In fact, he has just about become the Tragician's second favourite player. (If you're in any doubt about the identity of the first, allow me to welcome you to your first visit to the Tragician Blog).

It's hardly a surprise to see the other man carrying Adam off the ground. The bromance between Adam Treloar and Josh Dunkley has been ostentatious. (At times a little 'cringe', as I believe younger members of our community might say). Yet the curious fact is that neither of these Bromance Buddies wanted to play with us at the end of the 2020 season.

Adam was unceremoniously cut from the Magpies' list, and has made no secret of the devastation and pain of being forced out. He speaks often about his ongoing love for his former teammates in black and white, the club as a whole, and its supporters. This didn't stop those famously parochial fans booing Adam in his first match in our colours against them, weird even by their standards since his departure was so far from his own choosing. 

But later in that same match, as Adam stood on the wing, a slow rumble of noise built. Collingwood and Bulldogs fans were joining together to clap and cheer him. It was like a protective circle of thanks and goodwill. His new clan and his old clan joining together. A rare and precious moment of care and appreciation.

Coincidentally enough, at the same time as Adam was forced out, his future best mate Josh Dunkley wanted to jettison his contract with us, making a big play to join the Bombres. The reasons were perplexing and obscure to those of us outside the inner sanctum; undoubtedly a huge paycheck was part of the picture, but there were other vague whisperings. Of a loss of love for our club. Disappointment in things that went on inside the covid bubble. And perhaps more understandably,  a desire to get more midfield minutes. And (sigh) to not play in the ruck.

Many things were strange and depressing about all of this - to me at least - but none more so than him informing several team-mates of his intention to defect while they were away on holidays. Vice-captain of the club at the time, he was delivering this blow to his skipper, and some of the other best mates with whom he went out into battle on the field every week.

Our club held firm: Dunkley, our youngest premiership player, remained a Dog. For the fans - or perhaps just this one - there was some sort of fracturing in our bond with him, a feeling of distance or caution replacing the usual blind loyalty and clannish protectiveness that we feel for 'Our Boys.' I noticed that, strangely, I now called him Josh Dunkley rather than Dunks, adopting a business-like and detached attitude to him without quite realising why.

I guess we'll never really know what the emotions were, how things played out, or what conversations were held when Josh returned to the club for the first training session. His performances certainly did not show any signs of 'checking out' or a reduction in the fanatical attack on the ball for which Josh is known. Nor did his team-mates show any signs of shunning him for his attempt to leave behind their 'brotherhood' or the implied criticisms or disillusionment that led him to that point.

Despite outdated 'playing for the jumper' rhetoric, the players' connections to the clubs they play for are complex and multi-stranded in comparison to the simple and unequivocal loyalty we like to believe in.  Last week, Adam Treloar played a blinder against his old club. Pre-match he embraced his former team-mates and friends. Then he set out to clinically destroy their finals hopes and shore up the hopes of his new one. While afterwards, as he received his Robert Rose medal for best afield, he again expressed his love for those he'd left behind - or had chosen to leave him behind.

In the same match a former Bulldog was a solid contributor for the Pies; mercifully he was not booed by our fans. A teenage Patrick Lipinski had attended the 2016 Grand Final decked out in red white and blue; he then fulfilled his dream by being drafted to play alongside those he'd idolised from afar.

But last year he made the pragmatic, realistic decision that his footy career prospects were limited at our club, and slipped quietly away in an unobtrusive transfer to the Collingwood Football Club. Yet Pat still lives with Aaron Naughton; and after the match Bailey Smith ruefully acknowledged that his former team-mate, and still great friend, had hoodwinked him into hand-balling to him inside a pack.

Meanwhile there have been strange twists of fortunes (or should I say misfortunes) of the club that tried to poach Josh Dunkley. This year the Bombres (the Tragician's most despised club, if this REALLY is your first visit to this blog) have slid back to mediocrity after our club (smirk) turfed them out of the finals last year. This continues a remarkable streak where they have failed to win a final since 2004. 

A recent mauling at the hands of the Swans has sparked a media storm questioning the commitment, desire and talent of the players. And after footage of their high-paid import Dylan Shiel being mocked, with no retaliation or even the most feeble push and shove by his team-mates, the Bombres' culture was called further into question.

Remarkably the ruthless club with 16 premierships now faces dark nights of the soul, their vitriolic fans loudly questioning - in a delicious irony if you've ever stood wedged in, vastly outnumbered and miserable on the Windy Hill terraces - why they should even bother attending and supporting this rabble! The solution advocated by some - Bring Back James Hird! - is an astonishing reminder that there is so much about the Don-the-Sash mob that I'll never even begin to understand.

Much of the red-and-black outrage has been directed at their captain Dyson Heppell. He has recently told critics of his good-guy persona to 'jam it' and defended the fact that post-defeat, he is seen smiling and joking with team-mates and opponents. He has failed to display the requisite degree of wretched despair. 

Heppell has been ridiculed in a cruel video from an account called: 'We are Essington' which intercuts footage of his on-field bloopers with the stirring 'Captain! My captain!' scenes from Dead Poets Society.

Even the Tragician has stopped chortling by now, in fact I'm wincing with embarrassment and even pity. It gets me thinking about how club culture, brotherhood and loyalty are built - or more aptly in the case of the Bombres - brutally destroyed. 

For Dyson Heppell, a lifelong Essendon supporter who worshipped James Hird as a child, became an unwitting victim of a chaotic and illegal supplements program, while he was a teenager in just his second year at the club.

His 'idol' was coach at the time. 

Along with others, Dyson Heppell was eventually banned for a full year; a terrible toll, when he should have been in his prime as a 23-year-old. The 'drug cheat' stigma will be forever attached to his name.

Something cancerous entered their club, and I can't help but feel it is malignantly connected to the fact no-one rushed to the aid of Dylan Shiel. Doesn't it seem reasonable that the players, even those not directly involved in 'The Saga', may pull back a little? Why would they put on the line the bodies that their club was prepared to gamble with?

I wonder about how our team would have reacted if one of our players had been targeted in the way Dylan Shiel was. I may be just a tad biased, but I believe our club has a robust and thriving culture, nurtured by our empathetic coach, and built by outstanding men and one-club-players who have led our club over the same period when the red-and-black mob descended into the 'whatever-it-takes' darkness. We've been led by Chris Grant, Luke Darcy, Brad Johnson, Matthew Boyd, Bob Murphy and Easton Wood. (Yes I've left one out, but perhaps it proves my point, for the defection of Ryan Griffen rebounded mysteriously in ways that only strengthened our club and arguably caused a chain of events that led to the 2016 flag).

And now of course we have the latest in that series, Marcus Bontempelli. There would be no doubt that with him around the hackneyed phrase 'walking taller' actually means something. His leadership of our club, his care for his team-mates is natural and instinctive, authoritative without being pointlessly macho; The Bont learnt from the best. 

In the country-footy-ground atmosphere of Ballarat  we could hear the thwack of bodies and observe his greatness, even while clearly injury-hampered. We could see how slowly the Bont got up at times - yet hear his voice urging and organising his team. He somehow willed himself to drag down those last quarter marks and slot those goal that won us the game.

There would be at least one other Bulldog team-mate that you could always rely on to rush in and protect you in the clinches (even if it was, as it so often is, a skirmish that he himself had started). It's been a vintage year for our combative, cheeky, annoying - but to us always loveable Libba, recently pictured wearing a 'Honk for the Dogs' sign in Barkly Street. Maybe it was a result of losing a bet; maybe it showed that the frivolity so frowned upon by the critics of Dyson Heppell is alive and well at the Dogs; but there was something uniquely and mischievously Libba about it as well.

He's probably - ok, definitely - my equal second favourite player at the club!

Meanwhile, with a lump in my throat, I see a tweet from the Collingwood cheer squad. 

Congratulations Adzy on 200 games today. The Magpie Army loves you. Thank you for taking care of him @westernbulldogs.

Beautiful, classy and elegant. And yes. We will.