Hope and fear: they swirl around in equal proportions as we approach our top-of-the-ladder clash against the Cats. Hope: because that's what Bevo Our Saviour and his troops have instilled into us, confidence, belief and pride. Faith in the incredible resilience Our Boys have shown to win nine matches, hold a tenacious grip on a top four spot and withstand an appalling run with injury. Fear: because we're playing...Geelong. I can't quite escape a mental image of the Geelong players, the ultimate professionals, assembling at their home ground. They slap each other on the back, calm and ruthless, ready to cruise in formation down the Princes' Highway. They leap in unison onto their gleaming Harley-Davidsons, engines thrumming powerfully, confident of their ability to banish their Bulldogs' opponents into obscurity and wreck any hint of premiership pretensions. Again. I'm not fooled by the baby faces of their two leaders out in front of the squad, sporting mirrored sunglasses and blue and white striped bandanas. Beneath the choirboy appearances of Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood, as they lead their destructive forces towards Etihad, are a pair of seriously mean bad-asses. Just what is it about Geelong?
It feels like they're always there, to beat up on us in finals. A check of the history books shows that that's because, well, they ARE always there, to beat up on us in finals. We haven't exactly been regulars at the pointy end of the season over our 90-odd years in the competition. So surely it's a statistical anomaly that we've encountered them 10 times in the 45 finals we've played. (This is four more than any other rival). And, embarrassingly, only twice in those 10 encounters, all played at the MCG, have we emerged victorious. Overall, in our time in the VFL/AFL, we've played them 155 times and won only 56 times; our recent performances have continued this lopsided imbalance. The last time we beat Geelong was, in fact, in 2009. I've got a hazy memory of this match, where we met them in the second last round of the season. We'd been in terrific from, but needed to win to seal top four and even more so, to prove that we were a serious flag threat, and that the Cats (who laughably enough were viewed as on the slide) were no longer our nemesis. Amid the jubilation when we actually despatched them, was some confident malarkey and trash-talking about the fact our victory also ensured that we would play them in the first week of the finals. Bring 'em on! some strident (and perhaps naively inexperienced) Dogs' fans cried. (Not me: quite apart from my innate Tragician psyche, memories of embarrassing, 10 goal capitulations in finals in the '90s, and the Billy Brownless after-the-siren catastrophe, mean that apart from You Know Who from South Australia, they are the team I most dread facing). But now, so the theory went, the Cats were ageing, past their best. They'd lost their premiership hunger. Ripe for the picking. Perhaps there would be no need for a Tragician blog if the seasoned professionals from Geelong, who've long since lost their reputation for quirky flakiness, had just played out their designated roles in this scenario. But of course they defeated us. We buckled yet again on the big stage; the men from Geelong went on to win another flag. But all this is the past (do I hear you say it would be, if I didn't keep bringing it up). In a bracing pep talk, I remind myself that Bevo Our Saviour undoubtedly has strategies in place to counter the Curse of the Cats. Sure, he's said he has no plans to tag Dangerfield and Selwood (gulp), but he's just foxing, right? I rummage for a few more points on the 'hope' side of the ledger: many of our tormentors of the past are retired (half of them are actually Bulldog coaching assistants; surely they are able to help Bevo plot and scheme their former team's downfall). And are Geelong really travelling that well? They have lost this year to Carlton (smirk) and Collingwood (outright chuckle). Maybe they've reverted to that quirky flakiness again. As for Dangerfield and Selwood; well, we've got a more than handy midfield too. Maybe THEIR fans are sitting anxiously on the train journey to Melbourne, wringing their hands, asking each other in slightly hysterical tones: Let's hope Chris Scott has got a plan to counter Bont and String. SURELY we've got a plan for Bont and String?? ust what is it about Geelong? It feels like they're always there, to beat up on us in finals. A check of the history books shows that that's because, well, they ARE always there, to beat up on us in finals. We haven't exactly been regulars at the pointy end of the season over our 90-odd years in the competition. So surely it's a statistical anomaly that we've encountered them 10 times in the 45 finals we've played. (This is four more than any other rival). And, embarrassingly, only twice in those 10 encounters, all played at the MCG, have we emerged victorious. Overall, in our time in the VFL/AFL, we've played them 155 times and won only 56 times; our recent performances have continued this lopsided imbalance. The last time we beat Geelong was, in fact, in 2009. I've got a hazy memory of this match, where we met them in the second last round of the season. We'd been in terrific from, but needed to win to seal top four and even more so, to prove that we were a serious flag threat, and that the Cats (who laughably enough were viewed as on the slide) were no longer our nemesis. Amid the jubilation when we actually despatched them, was some confident malarkey and trash-talking about the fact our victory also ensured that we would play them in the first week of the finals. Bring 'em on! some strident (and perhaps naively inexperienced) Dogs' fans cried. (Not me: quite apart from my innate Tragician psyche, memories of embarrassing, 10 goal capitulations in finals in the '90s, and the Billy Brownless after-the-siren catastrophe, mean that apart from You Know Who from South Australia, they are the team I most dread facing). But now, so the theory went, the Cats were ageing, past their best. They'd lost their premiership hunger. Ripe for the picking. Perhaps there would be no need for a Tragician blog if the seasoned professionals from Geelong, who've long since lost their reputation for quirky flakiness, had just played out their designated roles in this scenario. But of course they defeated us. We buckled yet again on the big stage; the men from Geelong went on to win another flag. But all this is the past (do I hear you say it would be, if I didn't keep bringing it up). In a bracing pep talk, I remind myself that Bevo Our Saviour undoubtedly has strategies in place to counter the Curse of the Cats. Sure, he's said he has no plans to tag Dangerfield and Selwood (gulp), but he's just foxing, right? I rummage for a few more points on the 'hope' side of the ledger: many of our tormentors of the past are retired (half of them are actually Bulldog coaching assistants; surely they are able to help Bevo plot and scheme their former team's downfall). And are Geelong really travelling that well? They have lost this year to Carlton (smirk) and Collingwood (outright chuckle). Maybe they've reverted to that quirky flakiness again. As for Dangerfield and Selwood; well, we've got a more than handy midfield too. Maybe THEIR fans are sitting anxiously on the train journey to Melbourne, wringing their hands, asking each other in slightly hysterical tones: Let's hope Chris Scott has got a plan to counter Bont and String. SURELY we've got a plan for Bont and String??
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I couldn't shake a sense of nervous apprehension before the game. A tension, a foreboding. And soon enough my worst fears and suspicions were confirmed. Yes, the Commentary Non-Dream Team - Messrs Ricciuto, Dunstall and Russell - had assembled for our match against Port. Pumped, primed. ready, willing and depressingly able, to provide zero insight, and shamelessly one-sided 'analysis'. Their inane drivel would be, alas, my only lifeline to a match being played hundreds of kilometres away. I could maybe cope with the partiality that the unashamedly parochial local men, Ricciuto and Russell, brought to the table. It was harder to deal with the fact that there was barely one insight, perceptive comment or well-placed statistic that could make you see the match in a different light; no thoughtful reflection on how things were unfolding. You would scarcely credit that two of these men had been greats of the game. (The third was, of course, Dwayne Russell). I was labouring under extra disadvantage in my dependence on the Non-Dream Team. Staying up the coast on the long weekend I could only access the game through the Foxtel app on my ipad. It was difficult enough to make sense of the small shadowy figures flitting around the small screen and try to grasp the ebb and flow of the match; the tedious and often ludicrous Foxtel commentary offered no help at all in those endeavours. Surely in these days of technological innovation, there should be some alternative to these mugs. An instant 'google translate'-type feature; or even better a 'red white and blue' (aka RWB Channel) option in Foxtel settings, where Bulldogs' supporters could instead tune into much more insightful commentary by Brad Johnson, Barry Hall, and - why not? - the Bulldog Tragician. (I think it's time for me to extend my influence and become a multi-media personality). Just think about it. You could switch off Dwayne (what sort of name is that anyway?), Ricciuto (who sounds like Dermott Brereton. This is not a compliment) and Dunstall (probably the best of a very poor bunch). Instead of fuming when ten minutes are taken up in an endless analysis of whether a free to Port had been missed, Channel RWB subscribers would be savouring a loving frame-by-frame replay of The Bont tapping the ball to his advantage to create a magnificent goal. (Maybe even an interview with his grandmother at quarter time). You wouldn't have to withstand hysterical commentary about the (alleged) excitement machine in the Port forward line. So often did they use the phrase that I began to believe there was a Port player whose name was actually Charlie Dixon-Lurking. Port kicked it constantly in the direction of Charlie Dixon-Lurking, who reasonably frequently got his hand somewhere near the ball (WITHOUT ACTUALLY MARKING IT - sorry, Non-Dream Team, I thought that was the point of forwards). But instead of hearing the commentary team's shouts of pre-emptive ecstasy at the prospect of Charlie Dixon-Lurking actually clunking one at last, you would instead hear the calm, measured tones of RWB Channel. 'That's a clever mark to Matthew Boyd, reading the play well, while Charlie Dixon, who's been a largely disappointing recruit for Port, flapped around uselessly some metres behind the ball. What did you think, Tragician?' You'd be insulated from Dwayne's shrieks of infatuation as the ball launched into what he alone, despite all evidence to the contrary, labelled 'Dixon territory', but to the appreciative listeners of RWB channel, was more accurately described as unattended space in which three Bulldogs defenders could gather to move the ball briskly away and launch a scoring opportunity. In fairness Dwayne's raptures around Charlie Dixon-Lurking even made him oblivious to any good work by The Hyphenated One's team-mates. You might have thought at one point a mark by Ollie Wines was the result of his own smart play and hard work. Dwayne alone saw it differently - it was in actuality some superb decoy work by C-D-L in dragging his opponent out of the square. Or as RWB listeners in their parallel universe might have heard: 'Well, Barry, Charlie Dixon led to the wrong spot and was overlooked for the footy.' I shouldn't save all my venom for Dwayne alone, however (though it's fun). He was more than amply supported by Ricciuto, who was keen to point out that three of Port's defenders were injured (Jason Dunstall eventually did chip in to advise Ricciuto that the Dogs' men's department was somewhat depleted of late). I guess you can't expect Ricciuto to have done any research or preparation and exhibit any awareness of automatic inclusions such as our captain Murphy, vice-captain Wood, ball-winning magnet Johannisen and Marcus Adams. Ricciuto made a Nostradamus-style prediction at half time that it would be tough for the Dogs to get back into it. Perhaps a tad harsh given that WE WERE ACTUALLY IN FRONT. Early in the third quarter, with Power ten points ahead in what had been a fierce, absorbing contest, Ricciuto pronounced that the Dogs were 'on the ropes' and 'just don't look like scoring.' (We kicked the next three). One of these goals, a superb snap by Libber, was greeted with funereal silence by the Foxtel crew. I've rarely heard such clear deflation, bordering on depression as their preferred narrative hit a speed-hump. As the replay was shown, Ricciuto finally mustered the ungracious view that it had been 'opportunistic'. Not long after, Jake Stringer sustained a knock to the head when sandwiched in a tackle. Only our man Ricciuto could see it differently, even when several replays showed Jake, standing upright in the tackle, clashing heads with a Port player. 'That's what happens when you duck your head,' opined Ricciuto, who, it appears, has had one too many knocks to the head himself. He repeated the assertion again until even his fellow commentators became embarrassed and corrected him given the clear vision showing otherwise. At three quarter time, with more sparkling perceptions from Ricciuto about Port's wonderful record in closing out matches, my app had begun to crash (even though I'd so far resisted the strong determination to throw the ipad at a wall). I closed it down to steady my thoughts and ponder the progress of the game so far. I was in awe of how the Dogs had played, even though to my mind, each quarter had a different complexion. In the first, I thought we'd made a concerted effort to start well and blanket the crowd noise, and we'd succeeded, with some brilliant clearance work, sharp hands and attack on the footy. The Power hadn't wilted, however, and we seemed initially unnerved in the second quarter as they launched a ferocious counter-attack. The intensity of this quarter seemed even fiercer because I'd been at the Socceroos friendly against Greece a few days earlier. I was reminded all over again of the contrast between soccer and the sheer brutality of our game, how players get up again and again after jarring bone-jerking tackles, how relentlessly bodies are used as battering rams, how frightening and yet enthralling it can be to watch four, five, six players colliding in packs, placing head over the footy in horrifyingly dangerous places time and again. The RWB commentary team would have been able to point out that the most significant thing about the sustained assault in the second quarter was that we'd somehow weathered it. It would have actually been fascinating to hear someone with genuine insight explain to me how, exactly, our undermanned defence - featuring 18 year-old-Bailey Williams and three other players who've appeared in less than 30 games (Biggs, Hamling and Roberts) - withstood the tide (and even contained the threat of brilliance from Charlie Dixon-Lurking). This ability to soak up an opposition period of dominance and then land a telling counter-punch is the area where we've most improved from last year. In periods of non-dominance we are no longer as fragile; remarkably given our injuries and where they've hit we are the number one defensive team. In the third quarter, far from being 'on the ropes' as our mate Ricciuto would have it, connoisseurs of RWB Channel would have been appreciating that the Dogs were able to up the ante yet again, lifting the contested possession rate, and more importantly, and not always an area of strength for us, kick straight when we needed to. At three quarter time, my biggest concern is that the Dogs might become overwhelmed by the rabidly intense atmosphere generated by 40,000 Port fans willing their team home. I have often thought there may be a connection with the Bulldogs' less than stellar finals record, and the fact that we get comparatively little exposure to big crowds and the intimidating atmosphere of a belligerent crowd. I can't imagine what it's like to hear 40,000 people booing every shot at goal, screaming for free kicks; how on earth players are able to create their own mental space and only tune into their team-mates' voices and encouragement, and focus on what needs to be done. I'm not really sure whether my Dogs, with 11 players who have played less than 50 games and with our energiser bunny Luke Dahlaus unable to take any further part, can muster the will and composure to bring this one home. But I'm relishing the chance of finding out. Jake Stringer decides that he and he alone needed to provide our answer. As he bullocks around, a one person Man of Mayhem, he is unstoppable as he, to modify a certain phrase, tears the game apart. While along with every other Bulldogs fan I can wish for The Lair to add consistency and four-quarter effort to his stable of tricks, there is, I have to admit, a part of me that relishes the unpredictability and dazzling nature of his intersections with the game. Like a fireworks display that briefly lights up the sky, it's about magic and an unexpected burst of colours; adjectives that you know are never going to be placed besides Jake's name are dour, workmanlike, or pedestrian. Have the Dogs ever had a player as mercurial, a one-of-a-kind matchwinner who can turn a game like quicksilver in a matter of seconds? Do we really want him to be any another way? While these thoughts go through my mind, a different problem presents itself: the temperamental app finally splutters and dies. The Dogs are nine points up. There's far too much time to run. I've been texting my son back in Melbourne and when he hears my plight he Facetimes me and places the phone up against his TV so I can keep in touch. When Jack Redpath goals and we are still nine points up, I decide that the agony of watching it this way is too much. I hang up and opt to follow it on the AFL site. By the time it loads our lead has been cut to three points and I've no idea what's going on - no vision of the game, no sound, just a static scoreboard showing us at 94, and Port at 91. Suddenly the Bulldogs' score on the screen ticks over and we are at 100. It feels like the marauders' map in Harry Potter; a silent testament that great events have been going on while I'm stuck, adrift, apart, helpless, hoping. Later I will see how that goal - that wonderful, match-winning goal - is constructed. The mighty tap from Roughead. Not just one, but two ferocious tackles by Libber the Second. Quick hands combining to link Wallis and then 'Celeb' Daniel. The Bont leading out, making up ground as the kick seems to veer out of his reach, grasping the mark with sheer will as he falls forward. And just as he did against Adelaide, the touch of a champion as he kicks the goal, the goal that had to be kicked. When I return to Melbourne, I'll finally watch the game properly, with the luxurious knowledge of how it all ends and how this game, on foreign soil, was won. I'll be able to enjoy the powerful leading and marking of Jack 'First Quarter Specialist' Redpath. To notice all those little things that Jackson Macrae, heavily tagged, was able to do, celebrate his ten tackles, the bravery that he is now noted for, his unobtrusive contributions and run. To bask in another best on ground from The Bont who even by his stratospheric standards was superb in that nerve-wracking last quarter. To watch the ever-growing confidence and neat kicking of Shane 'Porn Star' Biggs, the gallantry and steely will of those backline veterans Boyd and Morris, Liam Picken's fanatical attack on ball and man, the way this team can withstand adversity and there is always someone to bob up, someone that can't be repressed any longer. To relish the will, the talent, the evenness of our contributors, the resilience of our game-plan and the ever growing self-belief of our young team. And as the RWB commentators would like to point out (somewhat hoarsely): 'That is an enormous, gutsy, fantastic win, and another step forward in our premiership quest. 'And did you realise, listeners, that Charlie Dixon managed just three marks for the game?' 'I'm glad you mentioned that, Brad, because Tory Dickson took four. 'In fact Charlie Dixon took only one more than our 19 year old, 168 cm champ 'Celeb' Daniel. But not as many as Lachie Hunter with six, or Honeychurch and Bailey Williams who each managed five.' 'Well, that's a wrap; we're off to join the team and sing the song. We'll see you next week.' My favourite Coodabeens’ football song has always been ‘My homeground’. It’s adapted, of course, from the wistful Bruce Springsteen song ‘My hometown’: a melancholy and bitter-sweet look back at the depressed, working class town of his childhood. A tale of struggle, change and survival. I can’t watch Greg Champion’s version (watch the YouTube clip below, with unrelated footage of us defeating the Pies in 1989) without being vividly transported back to that homeground: the Western Oval. To the sounds of stamping feet; the mingled smells of doughnuts, peanuts, damp duffel coats and Western Oval mud; to the sense of home, of community; to the memory of our place, our fortress, where we were always so much harder to beat. You can see Pies players wearing two jumpers as they brave the cold; the ground attendants sit on the fence swaddled in blankets. The crowd, huddled together, for warmth as well as solidarity, in a rare win, in a bleak season. There's the Olympic Tyres' clock, designed by my dad. And if you watch to the end, you can see Wally and Hunter linking up in a surge towards the Mt Mistake end. (That would be Steven Wallis and Mark Hunter, of course.) Our last ever home match was in 1997, against the Eagles. It was, to nobody’s surprise, accompanied by numbing cold, howling winds and rain that lashed against your face like icy splinters. (If for this historic occasion our beloved homeground had produced sparkling blue skies and balmy conditions, even Andrew Bolt may have seen the light, become an unlikely global warming campaigner and run for a Senate ticket with the Greens) We'd endured a dreadful ’96 season, saved from the wooden spoon only by the carcass of Fitzroy that was left swining in the breeze that year. But Terry Wallace had invigorated us into one of the more startling transformations: we needed to defeat the Eagles to cement a top four spot. The match was notable for one other thing: just before the opening bounce one of the Eagles’ younger players, one Michael Gardiner, was bumped and jostled by Dogs’ defenders who memorably, or to some infamously, greeted him with the words: “Welcome to the kennel”. This victory set us up for the 1997 finals series which culminated in - I’m sorry, I can’t quite recall how it ended – ummm – will need to get back to you on that one. It's a strange thing to realise that as the competition has expanded, and all the Melbourne clubs have lost their suburban grounds and the unique and tangible aura each of these possessed, the newcomers to the competition have not only retained theirs but built formidable home ground advantages.
The Eagles' winning record at their fortress, of latter years often dubbed, with good reason, the ‘house of pain’ has been a major factor in their top four finishes. Over the years our trips to Perth have resulted in some awful drubbings. There's always been some hulking gorilla forward: Sumich, Lynch, Kennedy, Darling, all to my mind like swarthy pirates with glints in their eyes as they kick double figure tallies and brush aside a series of forlorn Bulldogs' defenders. In the lead-up to our match against last year’s grand finalists, article after article heaped scorn on their woeful record of late away from Subiaco. (Were they TRYING to give the Eagles motivation by endlessly pointing this out?) Matthew Lloyd, helpfully explained to the Eagles' players that there was nothing to fear, that each ground just had green grass and the same goal posts, (Yeah, I've always thought Matthew Lloyd was a dill.) I'm not too concerned, because I realise that depsite my Western Oval nostalgia, somehow soul-less Etihad stadium has become OUR fortress. Like a true homeground, it's become a place where we play better, where our team and gameplan have become united, where the crowd noise in close last quarters has become an immense din, urging our boys on. And walking into the ground on Sunday I realise rather sheepishly that on dismal Melbourne afternoons, there are some advantages in escaping those freezing winds and gusty showers, or that trip to the appallingly smelly toilets, which were not so delightful feature of the old suburban grounds Something else has changed from those Western Oval days too. The Tragician has become evangelically optimistic. I believed we could win. I was SURE we would win, even when the news filtered through that our captain Easton 'Superman' Wood, who'd played such a superb captain's game the week before, had been troubled by that damn hamstring again and would not be available. This should have been the signal for an outbreak of gloom, knowing that he wouldn't be available for those moments where he somehow emerges from nowhere to fling himself in the pathway of scarily large and muscly bearded Eagles players. But then we hear there will be a new captain for the day. The Bont. Captain Bontempelli. It's always had an air of inevitability, that name. The Dogs start slowly. Maybe my kumbaya optimism was misplaced, or maybe the Eagles don't think Matthew Lloyd is as much of a dill as I do. They look switched on. The Dogs look a bit flat. But despite descriptions of our 'sexy' football, the work ethic of our team is to me the most powerful element of why we're doing so well. They just don't give up, imposing themselves into contests until the scoreline begins to tilt in our favour. The strange thing is, that almost every week we make mistakes, we mis-kick, we make inexplicable choices and decisions, we squander chances; yet so overwhelming is the sheer weight of our possession and the hunger and drive of the team as a whole that it matters less and less. I'm learning (with a few minor setbacks) not to focus on the errors and to see them as part of the picture, where we are currently at. Composure and polished finishing will come. And when they are allied with the heart of our players and their fierce will-to-win, the scoreboard will start to reflect that dominance, instead of us going into last quarters with an opposition we've comprehensively trounced in almost all measure still ominously in with a sniff. We keep driving forward in the first few minutes after three quarter time but that old bugbear of inaccuracy hits yet again. The Bulldogs' fan sitting near us, who is quite literally sticking pins into the legs of a West Coast voodoo doll every time the big bad Eagles shoot for goal, must have somehow mixed up her black magic spells; it's the men in red, white and blue who are spraying their shots. But Tom Campbell, not exactly known for accuracy, drives one home and we're 23 points up. It should be enough, but of course it wasn't. The Eagles rattle on the goals; even the dreaded Josh Kennedy, who's been kept goal-less by a combination of a surprisingly steady Fletcher Roberts and the whole concept of team defence, bobs up to put them within three points. When this happened a few weeks ago against the Crows, my stomach churned in the certain knowledge that we were going to blow the match and another chapter in the book entitled Ignominious Defeats When We Were The Better Team was about to be written. But, while I wouldn't quite describe myself as calm when Kennedy's shot sailed relentlessly through, the usual despair, terror and conviction that defeat was inevitable were missing. I found myself wondering who, not if, would stand up for us. How, not if, we would steady the ship and win the game. That it was Tom Liberatore was not a surprise. He'd played a massive game, whether it was his usual work in the clinches or as a less likely goal kicking sneak. But the Dogs had had many heroes over the afternoon. The work of our skipper, the youngest ever winning captain, who amassed an extraordinary 21 contested possessions and might just win that Brownlow he's destined for earlier than even I expected. Our unfashionable but effective ruck duo who took on the man mountain Natanui (who would have thought when last year Bevo seemed to think playing a ruckman at all was a bit too staid and predictable for one of his imagination and flair, that we'd now be selecting TWO). The defensive unit, who are indeed a unit that's greater than their whole, gelling together in a way that means that even when you see that somehow or other Matthew Boyd is one out with Josh Kennedy, that it won't really matter because his comrades will ensure it never gets near them. Oh and a special mention to The Lair. There is hardly a more electrifying sight than him grabbing the ball out of a midfield contest and going on a scintillating run with those turbo jet legs. Unless it's him guiding through a banana kick goal from the boundary, just the sort of outlandishly improbably goal that The Lair is born to kick (no matter that I still have head in hands when he takes a shot from 30 metres out dead in front). After the win, which takes us to fourth on the ladder, I watch 33-year-old Dale Morris, who's done his usual unobtrusive sterling job and, also as usual, spent almost the entire match on the ground, run all the way across the oval to high five the fans. He's beaming from ear to ear. As the teams leave the arena I found myself recalling a famous or infamous contest against the Eagles, at their homeground. A massive ugly brawl broke out, after Steve Wallis executed a brilliant old-fashioned bump on Brett Heady; completely fair but it laid him out cold. In the melee that followed our fearsome looking Daniel Southern grabbed Peter Sumich in a headlock; ill-feeling has simmered away in our encounters ever since. And looking back at the records of that day, I see that not only did the Dogs cop a 71 point hiding, but as well as Wallis, Mark Hunter and Libber the First played that day. And I see a more unexpected name: Luke Beveridge was in our colours for that bitter contest, accumulating a modest six possessions. It's 19 years since we left the Western Oval. A whole group of supporters now are growing up with no memory of that ground. Even though I've made my peace with our not so new home at Etihad stadium, it still heartens me to think that the sons of those men who played in the mud and the elements and in miserable times, are there, links in our chain. And later, when I see The Bont being greeted and congratulated by John Schultz in the rooms, and when I hear the awesome news that Bob Murphy will play on in 2017, I know that our history as well as our future are in good hands. |
About the Bulldog TragicianThe Tragician blog began in 2013 as a way of recording what it is like to barrack for a perennially unsuccessful team - the AFL team, the Western Bulldogs. Categories
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