​August 21, Round 21, 2004. Colonial Stadium.

The Tragician family were out in force, occupying two rows of seats. Brothers, sisters, cousins, friends. Kids who cried whenever the Dogs lost. The youngest member present was just a toddler.

It's the only match from yet another forgettable season, that I can actually still recall.

It wasn't because this was a cut-throat, blockbuster match. The Bulldogs languished three places from the bottom of the ladder. There were no jangling nerves, no finals spot on the line. We'd struggled to win just four matches; as we limped to the end of the year, coach Peter Rohde had already been sacked.

No, we were there for other reasons. One of our most beloved players was pulling on his red, white and blue jumper for the last time. Matthew Croft, 31 years old, the 820th player to play for the Dogs, was finishing a career which spanned back to a debut, aged 18, at the Western Oval, for a club still called Footscray.

For Matthew Croft, there were no Charles Sutton medals, no premiership medallion. I can't recall any best-on-ground accolades or performances where he single-handedly won us the game. Yet Crofty (there could be no other nickname) was especially adored by our family, though it was hard in some ways to explain exactly why.

Perhaps it was the injury challenges he'd fought so hard to overcome; when he reached his 50th match milestone, he ruefully noted that he'd also played 50 games in the reserves and missed a further 50 through injury. Mainly these were hamstrings strains, which was why he was also known for his 'mattress thighs', flesh-coloured padding worn to protect those troublesome tendons. 

Maybe it was that in an era of superstar full forwards, there was something honest, brave and straightforward in his every performance, the challenge he took on as a key defender in an era of one-on-one contests rather than total team defence. There was a wry smile on his face - or so I imagined - as he strode out, in his slightly ungainly way, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against hulking figures like Wayne Carey, David Neitz, Gary Ablett Senior or Matthew Lloyd.

But mostly I think it was because inside Matthew Croft, we detected a flamboyant spirit just barely suppressed. You could never be sure when, somehow mixed in with his disciplined punches from behind, or the manful jostling for front spot against the titans, Crofty might decide to take off on a daring run. Our hearts were in our throats when Crofty got that glint in his eye and embarked in a dash from defence, or even, Krakoueur-brother-like, attempted a baulk. When they came off, we applauded the audacity with laughter (and a degree of relief). "Football genius!" my brother Brendan once proclaimed. If instead he was brought down in a slow-motion train-wreck tackle - and I won't say which outcome was the most frequent - we loved him all the same.

We scoffed when the commentators fawned over the so-called 'King' Wayne Carey. (Somehow you knew he was a scumbag even then). WE had Crofty, in his unglamorous support garments- the People's Champion!

Crofty kicked five goals in his last match, three of them in the third quarter. All of them were jubilantly celebrated by our clan. He must have thought how easy this forward caper was, if only he'd been given more of a chance up front, instead of wrestling with the gorillas. He even got a Brownlow vote! Confirming my theory that he was a secret lair at heart, his last shot at goal, with a win well in hand, was a banana from only five metres out.

August 17, Round 23, 2025. Moonee Ponds.

The Tragician family are out in force, occupying two rows of seats. Brothers, sisters, cousins, friends. Kids who used to cry when the Dogs lost are adults, with partners. We've all seen a premiership - yes, a premiership! The youngest member present is now a trainee nurse and just back from a trip to Europe. She sits on the couch next to my mother, who is now 88 years old.

We're not at Docklands stadium though. We're at Brendan's family's home. It would have been, should have been, his 63rd birthday. We've raised a glass, eaten party pies and sausage rolls. We silently remember and grieve, always, for him.

How he would have loved the romance of this match! For Matthew Croft's son, Jordan, is debuting, wearing the same number 16 jumper, almost exactly 21 years since his dad's final game at the same venue.

The elder Croft had presented Jordan with his jumper. His words were beautiful, alive with the sense of our club's lineage, of the glowing shadows of those who've worn it previously. After citing the names Darcy, Griffen, and premiership player Toby McLean, Matthew, showing the self-deprecation you might expect of a man of his calibre, said of his own career: 'There was also a bit of a foot soldier backman somewhere there.' I silently corrected his humble words as I watched the video. No, Crofty. You were a football genius!

The match isn't one where even a Bulldog Tragician can get too jittery. The feared, powerhouse Eagles have astonishingly become competition easybeats. As the Dogs stroll away to ever-increasing margins, though, we can still spot free kicks missed, groan at turnovers, fret at easy goals conceded.

Most of all though, we cheer for Crofty of the junior variety. The kid has a dream debut. He's tall - not far off Sam Darcy's height - gangly of course, and ferocious at the contest. We are naturally hoping for a vintage baulk, but instead he takes a screamer. We instantly decide we love everything about him!

Our special cheers are reserved for the moments when he links up with the other three father-sons. Passages of play featuring the names Darcy, West, Liberatore and now Croft lead to full-throated roars. And when an Eagles player gets ambushed in a crunching tackle, with Rhylee West and Jordan Croft combining, we immediately dub it a Crofty-Westy sandwich.

These carefree moments, where every glittering possibility is still open to a debutant, where footy must seem like a lark, are precious for us to watch as fans. We join in their dream of what could be. And yet I remember footy's darker possibilities are always close too; one of Jordan's fellow recruits in 2023 Aidan O'Driscoll retired within a few months of arriving at the club. He was aged 18, and had suffered a sickening head-knock in an innocuous pre-season training session. He will never play AFL again.

At the end of the match the four Sons of Guns pose for a photo together. Tom Liberatore, Sam Darcy, Rhylee West. Jordan Croft. I gaze at these young men (...and Libba, of course) and feel there is something pure and wonderful and even innocent about the notion of a lineage. 

They are the holders of our future dreams, connectors to our past.

Sometimes lately the Tragician is jaded about the football 'product.' Mainly because it's even called a product. The AFL these days makes itself hard to love. Blaring music, incessant gambling promotions, contrived and blatantly unfair fixturing, trade rules favouring constant player movement, a violent, misogynistic rapper selected to sing at the Grand Final. But the father-son tradition isn't one of those many missteps.

How special it is to see Luke Darcy and Matthew Croft standing on the sidelines - fathers, and fans -  as their boys sing our song. I can dream that maybe one day I will see Oscar Liberatore - grandson of Tony, son of Tom - run out for our club, just as my mother has lived to see three generations of Darcys - David, Luke and Sam - representing the red, white and blue.

It got me thinking about the past, though. (Uh-oh I hear you say). About the career of a 'footsoldier' like Matthew Croft and what constitutes success.  After all, he played in nine finals, for just two wins. In fact, (c'mon, do you really need to go there again Tragician?) he was a member of the besieged defence in The Preliminary Final That Must Not Be Named.

In that dreadful last quarter, the chance of a fairytale 1997 grand final appearance evaporated in a mishmash of panic and mistakes as we squandered a solid lead. Yet in the frenetic last minutes, we were still two points up, hanging on by the skin of our teeth, when Crofty took a fine intercept mark. He could have played it safe. Settled for time, and the slow play. Instead our hero whirled around and played on. It was the right call, I think, but we'll never know. Crofty launched the ball forward, where Dogs players were free: Mark West grabbed the ball and ran into an open goal. His shot faded away. We kicked 0.6 for the quarter to lose by two points.

For Matthew Croft, a grand final was never that close again.

I hadn't realised it, but the four dads of the Sons of Guns - Tony Liberatore, Scott West, Luke Darcy, and Matthew Croft - were in the team together on that most heartbreaking of days. 

I feel an ache in my heart. It could be that I overdid the party pies and sausage rolls. But I know it's about something else. The bewildering speed of the passage of time, tiny moments and yawning chasms of possibilities, life's joys and sorrows. Beginnings, and endings.

​The siren had sounded. We had defeated our greatest foe, the Bombres, by a comfortable 41 point margin. We'd dealt a major blow to their finals' aspirations, while bolstering our own. In fact, this latest win was another step in something of a golden era for us against our unlovable neighbors; surprisingly, we've won 12 of our last 20 against them. We were also the most recent team to prolong their  long finals drought, which now approaches 7000 days.

You may have imagined the Tragician walking proudly from the ground, red, white and blue scarf at a jaunty angle in order to discreetly display the miniature 2016 premiership cup. I wouldn't interact with the seething Essendon fans; I'm too classy, or at least too short, to risk it. I'd be on the alert, though, hoping to eavesdrop on the outraged fans in red and black. Maybe I'd hear them canning the efforts of my formerly beloved 'Lair'. Jake Stringer had gathered just eight possessions, and was now being described by embittered Bombres fans as a KMart DeGoey.

None of the above was in any way true. Instead, the Tragician was conspicuously absent. And at the final siren, had only just turned on the AFL app to see if we had won.

It wasn't because I was on holiday elsewhere. Or ill, or injured. In fairness, with virtually all the Tragician family overseas, I was unable to find a barracking companion. And, then, it was a home game for the red and black. You won't find me contributing to the bulging Windy Hill coffers!

These justifications were far from the whole story though. After all, they didn't explain why I'd also imposed a boycott on watching, or listening, to the match. Sadly, it was because I was afraid we'd lose. And in a deeply frustrating 2023, that prospect, against the Bombres no less, just seemed a bridge too far.

This may seem preposterous, given how many losses I've seen in decades of barracking. It could well seem hypocritical, given my repeated, sanctimonious claims that losses are character-building, an essential part of belonging to my club.  I've preached of the importance of just being there. I've dragged myself to many a match knowing a flogging was about to ensue, kept supporting them after multiple finals disasters, and even embraced, with some degree of pride, the peculiar charms involved in barracking for a spectacularly unsuccessful club. 

And yet. And yet...

Amid all the emotions that my support of the Bulldogs has evoked over time  - despair, hope, euphoria, sadness, anger and occasionally, well, frequently, bafflement - my 2023 state of mind has been the most confusing yet. But if I had to sum it up in one word it's been...annoyance.

I'd expected awful losses back in the day. We were just objectively bad in many of those dreary seasons when we barely won a game. And there was something thrillingly noble about our endless appearances in preliminary finals, and the way we invented new ways to lose.

But the way we lose in 2023 - somehow it's been different. These aren't the tight losses where gallant Footscray teams pushed better sides at a rainy Western Oval before succumbing, and then being cheered off by the faithful including a youthful Tragician. These losses have come when our team, crammed with talent, has squandered leads, shot themselves in the foot with tediously bad goal-kicking, or costly concentration lapses. The 2023 cohort have riled and frustrated me in ways I don't remember before, even though - or maybe because - their effort was never really in question.

The week before the Essendon match, our performance against the Swans was like a microcosm of the ways we contrive to lose. It was a defeat so disheartening that I feared it would break the psyche of the group. Bont even threw his mouthguard to the ground. And may have uttered a swearword !

The media were now swarming all over our poor performances. We were wasting a golden era of generational talent (read: The Bont era), it was claimed. Another article plaintively asked a question in all our minds: 'Why aren't the Dogs good any more?' Bevo Our Saviour was grim-faced and clinical, but somehow perplexed, in his press conferences. The unthinkable prospect of him being sacked was really not that unthinkable any more.

This was the backdrop to the Bombres match. I felt a bit like the comedian who said he wasn't afraid of dying. He just didn't want to be there when it happened.

We could lose against the Bombres. I just didn't want to see it unfold in real time.

In order to ward off a scoop by Caro, or feverish speculation from Damian Barrett linking me to a feud with Bevo, I contemplated making a public announcement. 'The Bulldog Tragician is stepping away temporarily from her role as a fan, to focus on her mental health'. But no one seemed to have noticed I was missing, so I sat on the couch instead refusing to check the score.

When I heard the result, I was happy of course.

But I celebrated with a new emotion I've specially coined for 2023. It's known as muted jubilation.

My self-imposed exile was short-lived. Soon I was on the road to Ballarat. The win against the Bombres had definitely been enjoyable, when I watched it the next day with the luxury of knowing the result. The Dogs, to their credit, have kept rebounding after frustrating losses. I hoped my doubts about us had finally been quelled. We started terrifically against The Acronyms. And then, in 2023 fashion, we fell right away, squandering a six goal lead. There were extenuating circumstances, sure, our defence hard hit by injury. But it didn't feel like the whole story.

I was annoyed, all over again.

So I didn't hold out high hopes for our match against Richmond.  Not least because we were going to wear the diamond dogs' guernsey. I couldn't look at it without succumbing to 97 flashbacks of The First Libba leaping into the arms of his teammates to celebrate the goal-that-wasn't in The Preliminary Final That Must Not be Named.

Even without this bad omen, I felt the belief of the 2023 group must be eroded now; I couldn't see how Bevo could keep them upbeat and positive. I braced myself for the inevitable. I thought we'd lose in a grinding miserable scrap which the Tigers would break open through some Shai Bolton magic (that guy just loves playing against us).

I didn't expect the most blistering, brilliant and dynamic first quarter we've played since the 2021 Preliminary Final. We could do no wrong, launching attack after attack. Our forwards were dangerous, and took every half or even quarter chance; our hard-running backline scintillating. 

It was great fun, of course, but I was careful to keep my mindset within the acceptable parameters of muted jubilation. I waited for the Tigers to rattle on the goals, for me to look at the scoreboard in confusion, unable to understand why they were somehow only one point down. 

But The Bont's brilliance broke through my defences. He was playing footy on some higher plane, doing things that were just outrageous, delicately picking up a ball from his fingertips, showing unbelievable courage, gliding away from hapless opponents, beautifully weighting kicks to the forwards. In case we were bored with the display, he livened things up, deciding to be a forward himself in the third quarter. His three goals were a mini highlight reel. A huge tackle to win a free? Check. A crazy-brave mark running back with the ball? Check. Elegantly brushing aside two Richmond defenders as though they were little leaguers to take a mark? Wouldn't you know it, the Bont did that too.

I don't know if I've seen a better, more complete individual performance. His partner-in-crime Libba, himself playing a wonderful match, continually had a bemused half-smile beneath his moustache. He looked as though he was just glad to have an inside view of such magnificence, and was happy and grateful to be the one shovelling it out constantly to The Man. Who was, inevitably, pretty good at being the one who shovelled it out too.

It was our best, four quarter performance of the year. But are we any closer to knowing whether we are the real deal in 2023? Can we trust that the dazzling footy we've displayed in spurts can be put together at the right time? Does Liam Jones make THAT much difference?

It's hard not to be constantly watchful for the lapses that have plagued us since the disastrous 2021 grand final. No matter how far up we are, I'm constantly suspicious, nervous about whether we will stem the bleeding when our opposition gets on the run.

But while those questions remain, we get to watch the man who will surely become our greatest ever Bulldogs player. In my mind, he already is. While he's out there, the Dogs are always a chance. He's already come so close to fulfilling the destiny I claimed for him after just his sixth game: a premiership player,  a captain, a best and fairest winner, surely on track for a Brownlow. All that's missing is a Norm Smith medal. It hurts to remember it was in his keeping at the 15 minute mark of the 2021 Grand Final. There will be nothing muted about my jubilation if that accolade is claimed by him as well.

​Sometimes I think the old suburban rivalries have long since disappeared, their intensity diluted by the corporatisation of football and the loss of those tribal home grounds which each had their own identity, feel and (at the Western Oval at least) smell. Maybe those hatreds have become meaningless in the modern era of The Truly National Competition.

But then I hear the Carlton theme song. And I instantly know that isn't the case at all.

We were a couple of blocks away from arriving at the blandly anonymous Marvel stadium when we heard it. Those familiar, triumphant opening chords blared out from a vehicle close by. We looked around apprehensively, expecting to see plumes of cigar smoke and a cavalcade of Rolls Royces carrying captains of industry. But it was a humble pedicab containing four or five Blues fans, adopting a novel way to get to the ground.

They looked ordinary enough. I could have smiled and regarded it as harmless and quirky. But after decades of antipathy towards the Olde Dark Navy Blues and everything they stood for I've lost my sense of humour where they are concerned. 

And then ... the swarm of Bluebagger fans around us began to join in with the song.

For God's sake, we weren't even inside the stadium!

I was bewildered at how their chutzpah survives even their recent unsuccessful years. I mean, weren't they this very week on the ropes, under the pump, getting the blow-torch applied to them? (and a few other footy cliches) after their underwhelming start to the year thrust them into the spotlight.

I couldn't make sense of it. Here they were, as brazen and bumptious as ever; I couldn't imagine the Tragician family making a similar grand entrance to the ground. It was surprising too because in other ways there has been a shift in Carlton's usual boastfulness. This week, when their poor performances were being constantly discussed, the Blues' top brass had reacted, not with fire and brimstone and thundering declarations that at Carlton they only existed to win premierships. There were no ominous hints of axes were being sharpened, no dark threats they would soon be ruthlessly deployed.

No, their response was Un-Carlton Like. Meek. Almost humble.

It wouldn't be a disaster or a season wasted if the Blues didn't make the finals, they said. They only just stopped short of cliches about valuable learning opportunities. I could almost hear a snarl of 'Pigs Arse' from one of their former presidents, uttered behind a wreath of cigarette smoke, if he'd been around to hear such arrant nonsense.

Despite this apparent new-found warm and cuddly persona I couldn't escape a visceral dislike. If I wondered why, I had my answer when their team broke through the banner and their song blared out again. In my youth I'd mis-heard the lyrics and thought they were openly bragging about their ability to buy premierships:

With all the champions! We like to spend up! To keep our end up.

My scowl intensified.

The barrage of criticism, and the fact their own supporters had booed them the previous week, didn't spur the Bluebaggers into a ferocious attack in the first minutes. (Maybe they were reassured to know finals aren't everything). Our Boys asserted an early control over the game while the Carlton team looked - has such a concept ever been associated with this club? - down on confidence. They missed gettable shots, they gifted us goals with miskicks. And there appeared to be more evidence that Carlton were comfortable with their new, more self-effacing reality; when they finally scored their first goal, well into the second quarter, the scoreboard flashed up what I thought was a message of encouragement: 'We're on the board!"

However, when pictures of a charcuterie board and an advertisement for a brand of ham instantly followed, I felt weirdly comforted that at their core, they remained the same.

At half time the Blues had kicked just one goal. It brought back memories of a gloriously soggy, windswept afternoon at the Western Oval in the 1990s, when we almost kept the high flying Carlton team goal-less for the entire match. Such were our thrills, our version of premiership success, back in the day, alongside the celebrated occasion in 2000 when we inflicted on the Bombres their only defeat for the year. I grudgingly concede, however, fans of these two clubs are likely to be busier dwelling on their abundance of premierships, rather than still fretting over losses to the lowly Dogs.     

It was now the start of what previous generations of Blues' fans used to call the premiership quarter. Usually this featured an avalanche of goals from the likes of The Dominator, Sticks, Buzz and The Flying Doormat (these were players, not professional wrestlers, should there happen to be any younger readers of this blog). So I was alert and - as always - significantly alarmed. But our team initially built on our lead. We looked as though the match was in our keeping, as though we would actually pull further away.

But the Blues crept, rather than stormed, back into the match. They were painstaking rather than dazzling. The match had been low-scoring. Now, they made fewer mistakes. They were within two goals at the last break, and a rumbling roar took over the stadium. They were 'coming' as their immodest slogan bragged one season not too long ago.

An infamous Bulldogs collapse was on the cards.

'I feel sick,' moaned Libba Two.

'I have a headache,' I whined.

At times like these I can simultaneously realise how ridiculous it is to be a footy fan whilst being unable to be anything but.

I expected the Dogs to lose, of course. A lowlight reel, of days of thrashings at Princes Park flashed before my eyes. I could anticipate the noise of the Blues' fans, their jubilation, as their team swept over the top of us. I could see the headlines, anticipate the questions, feel the irrational emotions of shame and embarrassment that come from losing a game where you've been more than five goals up and comfortably in control.

There were an important few minutes to start the last quarter; we knuckled down and fought gallantly to stop their momentum. We were hoping, of course, for Bont, our saviour so often, to produce some magic. But we couldn't seem to score. Carlton grabbed the lead, for the first time in the match, with just ten minutes to go. The stadium rocked. Blues' players began thumping their chests and pointing to their jumpers. I was unclear whether, this being Carlton, this was an expression of emotion, or a preplanned marketing tactic to highlight one of their sponsors.

Most of all I was just steeling myself for That Song. Preparing my most stoic expression. It's been well-practised over the years.

Libba (the player, not one of the Sisters), quick of mind, conjured up a goal against the odds. Yet the Blues replied, far too quickly. I thought we were out of ideas. I wasn't confident if this group had the fanatical zeal and desperation to rally again.

The ones who rallied weren't just the old reliables, Bont, Libba, Macrae. Bailey Smith, the last quarter specialist, was gut-running when all around were fatigued. Our re-fashioned defensive group - I've begun to call them the Mean Boys - kept repelling the Blues. And there was a brilliant cameo from everyone's favourite player at the moment (sorry Bont) the irrepressible Arty Jones.

I'm convinced crowds have particular noises, for particular players. A murmur of appreciation when Bont glides into the frame. A theatrical gasp when Naughton launches. And now a buzz of excitement...ARTY!!...as he put us back in front.

We somehow blasted out four goals to win in a matter of minutes. Strangely enough it could have been more; two absolute sitters were missed.

We sang the song, our song. Unsurprisingly headaches and nausea had disappeared.

The Blues' fans had long since filed home. Astonishingly, many gave up the ghost after LIbba's goal. I wondered, afterwards, do they feel any sense of heightened rivalry or bitterness towards us, or is it just a one-way street? Are we insignificant and inoffensive still in their minds compared to their long-standing identity as a superpower? Do they save their venom for the Pies and the Bombres, even though those two teams have been, on the whole, less successful than us over the past two or three decades?

Once, long ago, one of those nondescript, battling Footscray teams pulled off an upset against the highly fancied Blues. A footy writer at the time reported that Carlton fans afterwards said they didn't mind losing to us occasionally. It was good for the game, good for the competition, they said magnanimously. 'What would be better for the game and the competition,' said the journo very wisely, ' was if they hated being beaten by those Dogs because it happened all the bloody time.'

In 2014 a raw and gawky teenager named Marcus Bontempelli was a guest on one of the footy programs. He'd played a handful of immensely promising games.

Presenter Mark Robinson leaned in towards him, with a fake, oily air of intimacy and confidentiality designed to trip the young bloke up. What did you REALLY think when you were drafted by the sad and sorry Bulldogs? (You can trust me, just share with Robbo the truth?) Was your first thought : 'Oh no!'

Not for the first time, I nearly succumbed to the temptation to throw something at Mark Robinson's foolish face on the TV. But, looking slightly affronted, our new number four politely rebuffed Robinson's condescending assumption. With an air of composure, he spoke about the good things at the club and his enjoyment at being there.

This was the first, but by no means the last, time I would feel inordinately proud of Marcus, as I still quaintly called him. (For like a bashful suitor I felt it was too early to call him by a nickname. And I was maintaining an increasingly fragile posture, claiming that the legendary Daniel Cross would be, forever and always, my favourite player to wear number four). 

Marcus had played in five losses - including a 45-point loss to Gold Coast, if you're wondering just how well our team was travelling - before he got the chance to sing the club song. Somehow his first victory was one of those that have somehow penetrated through the fog of too many seasons, too many matches, that is the fate of the long-term supporter.

It was June 2014. We were at rock bottom. (Again). We were a laughing stock. (Again). A smarmy article had been written that day questioning our very identity and calling us..."irrelevant". We were about to play a Collingwood team who were a premiership contender; it was the dead of winter. Even the Tragician didn't want to head to the match.

But if the fans couldn't show stoicism and grit, why should the players, I asked somewhat rhetorically, heading gloomily - yet sanctimoniously - out the door.

The blog that day was called: We came, we saw, we believed. It was worth being there, of course it was. The Dogs upset the Pies, and Marcus, who could perhaps (I was coming around) now be called Bont, or Bonti, earned a Rising Star nomination. He hugged his dad at the end of the match. It was a beautiful moment.

We knew - KNEW - he was going to be special.

​Bont (oh, all right, I was throwing caution to the wind by now) played every game for the rest of the season, one in which the Dogs finished 14th. In one of these he kicked a stupendous goal that is remembered by all who saw it and which saw me feverishly anoint him as a future captain, Brownlow and Norm Smith medalist! (My understated, low-key blog was called: All about the Bont).  I knew, we all knew, the hyperbole was justified. We saw greatness. We hoped, almost superstitiously feared, how far he could take us.

Somehow, improbably, The Bont is now 27 years old. He plays his 200th game this week. Less improbably, he is our captain, for this was always his destiny, and a premiership player. By his own will, and outsized talent, he made that his, and our, destiny.

As fans, we've been alongside him, sometimes raucously, sometimes silently, always with a sort of reverence, through all those years.

We were there in the 2015 final, when a chant of his name which I've never heard (before or since) for an individual Bulldog reverberated around the arena. (Bont missed gettable shots of goal that evening, and a jittery Tragician feared that the Bulldog Curse had somehow infiltrated even his sunny demeanour).

We were there in the moment that some North Fake Tough Guys roughed him up. The unflappable teenager smothered the kick of one of the chief antagonists and then did what I christened the Bontempelli Smirk.

We joined him in the unlikely fairytale ride of 2016, mystified, and yet enthralled when we heard his, and the team's, mantra was: 'Why not us?' Such an UnBulldog-like, carefree sentiment would normally have been treated with suspicion, and worse, embarrassment ... as if we didn't know, as if it wasn't burnt into our consciousness, all the reasons it was never us. But in the moment that Bont stretched out his arms and outbodied Luke Hodge, I became strangely calm. I entered a trance-like state from that point, somehow indoctrinated almost against my will in a 'Why not us?' cult.

Now, when I watch the goal Bont kicked in the suffocating last quarter against The Despised Acronyms, I'm awed by the degree of difficulty. The way he had to run full pelt onto an awkwardly bouncing ball. The skill with which he paddled it almost delicately into his outsized hands.

The smoothness with which he steadied. The laser-like contact from his left foot.

So many things could have gone wrong. Yet at the time I knew no other thought, but that because it was Bont, he would surely kick it.

We've seen him kick goals of outrageous flair. Time and again we've seen him burst from the centre with that unique blend of grace and power. We've seen his strong, yet soft hands bring down marks, seen him somehow there on the last defensive line in the urgent dying matches of moments, his fist coming over the top to save the day. The competitiveness burning beneath a genial demeanour.

I guess there has been less of the Bontempelli smirk. Because hard times come to champions too.

We saw the GWS thugs monster him, the scratches on his face, the punch to his gut outside play. We weren't with him though - we were so many many kilometres away - when he celebrated his third goal in the 2021 Grand Final. Apart, literally, from our team, isolated by COVID, we watched those awful moments that followed, as the match vanished from our keeping. We could only silently grieve, for all our team but Bont in particular, knowing how much he had done to get us to that final, an awe-inspiring individual season, and captaining in the most difficult and extraordinary of circumstances.

It seemed important to me to keep the TV on, to see Bont make the concession speech, such a hard, wrenching moment. He was dignified. Calm. Gracious. But hurting.

We could see, in those stunned, wretched minutes, how badly our champ was hurting.

There are still occasional moments - though it's probably inevitable there are fewer in the hard grind of what's now a nine-year career - when we see the young Marcus reappear. When our team made the finals last year as The Old Dark Navy Blues slipped out of the eight in the dying moments of the round (that's a Tragician smirk from me) and he leapt around wildly with his team-mates. When Bont jumped from the bench when Little Arty NEARLY kicked a goal.

We brim with pride on every single occasion we see him in his captain role: his gentle and beautiful manner as he shepherds children who run through the banner, his fierce comments about racism, his silent but powerful stand alongside Jamarra when he spoke about what he'd endured.

Last week Bont played one of his more majestic games. Perhaps it was his best ever, I felt it to be so, yet memories can be so imprecise. But every feature, every one of his amazing repertoire of skills, was present in cameo. The clearance work where he doesn't slow down as he takes the ball and lopes off, much quicker than a guy of his size has any right to be. The outrageous 30-metre handballs which anticipate, indeed command, where his team-mate must go. Marking befitting a power forward. A speckie!

He's learning new tricks. He's in his prime.

I admit he has flaws. He's had a few bad haircuts, for example. If I think of any others I'll get back to you.

We've often wished we could clone him. At various points of last week's match I thought such technology had actually come to fruition, because surely that couldn't be Bont taking a mark on the forward line when he'd been the one to win the clearance, or spoil an opposition's forward thrust half a second earlier?

There is a school of thought that our club's erratic and overall disappointing performances since 2016 have 'wasted the Bont years.'  That with this once-in-a-generation (make that once-in-a -lifetime) talent at our disposal, we should have been more successful. Reaped more rewards. Consistently played finals. Jagged a premiership, maybe two.

I don't quite see it that way.

Maybe it's the legacy of too many years where our team were a rabble, and perhaps fans of the big successful clubs would heap scorn on this idea. Just seeing Bont play has been a privilege and a joy, and his feats, his brilliance, will always shine bright whether he adds another premiership to an already glittering resume.

Maybe it's unique to us as Bulldogs' fans, or maybe it's unique to me as a Bulldog Tragician. I've learnt, maybe I had to learn, to take solace in tiny moments, and savour the individual talents, stories and efforts. Because premiership glory comes along rarely, and there have to be other reasons to drag out the scarf when someone's written a supercilious article calling you irrelevant and another thrashing seems assured. I've still appreciated the artistry, the bravery, the gumption of all those - too many! - Bulldogs who played 200, 300 games for us and didn't even make one grand final. Their careers weren't a waste. Their efforts are still to be celebrated.

There will be another flag for Bont, though, a voice whispers insistently in my ear. I certainly won't need any extra prompting to drag out my scarf and head for the match on Saturday, to celebrate the player and even more the person. He's definitely been a worthy heir to the Daniel Cross guernsey, and if we're very lucky there might at some point be a trademark Bontempelli smirk.