The Footy Boss: An in-depth look at all aspects of the Western Bulldogs
Where exactly are the Western Bulldogs at? After a disappointing finish to 2025, ex-footy boss Brad Lloyd breaks down all things at the Kennel – including why the biggest free agent is the game is a perfect fit.
Will Darcy was the last player taken in the national draft, almost at the opposite end to his brother Sam, when he was taken second in 2021.
Will’s progression late onto the list, helped with a growth spurt, shows how clubs are keeping close tabs on father-sons and father-daughters these days and the value of club academies for those in the southern states.
THE FATHER-SON SYSTEM
The Darcy family history at the Bulldogs needs no introduction.
Will is another athletic tall who played more school footy early in the year at Scotch College and got into the Oakleigh Chargers program.
Watching vision he reminded me of some attributes of a younger version of Fremantle captain Alex Pearce as a tall, athletic defender.
Will came on much later than his older brother but as a father-son of 226-gamer Luke the Bulldogs would have kept tabs on his progress throughout the year.
The way he has developed and shot up would be helpful but the entry of NGAs (next generation academies) has really enhanced father-son and father-daughter involvement at clubs.
A lot of clubs are investing an enormous amount into the academies.
From my time at Carlton, football director Greg Williams was one who heavily pushed the club academy and the club invested in that area and therefore the exposure to father-sons is a lot more than it would have been.
Some of these players are now watched even more closely from a really young age and I would suggest that would be no different at a club like the Western Bulldogs.
They would have been communicating pretty closely with Will’s parents knowing he was allowed to be held back a little and focus on his school work instead of heading straight down to Oakleigh.
The AFL acknowledged, as the academies were being designed, that they can’t develop every single player in Australia.
More kids are getting access to coaching and AFL development, it is like there are 18 AFL hubs out there doing extra elite coaching.
And father-son and daughters have benefited from that, given those prospects fit into academies.
I think the development part of it is great for the game and we have seen Queensland is pretty much developing its own talent.
Although there is always controversy on father-sons staying at their club and the price paid for them in the draft, the overall development at elite level is more positive.
Given the amount of work and the dollars put into NGAs, there needs to be a tangible return for clubs to be willing to invest in this space and deliver that development, so the father-son rule provides something for clubs to work towards.
The most talked about departure at the Dogs this year was Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, who headed to the Suns in a trade.
Jamarra had had his challenges but the Dogs would have prioritised his wellbeing and there are great people at the club from football GM Sam Power through to CEO Ameet Bains.
Gold Coast has given him a great opportunity and it is a pretty exciting time to go up there and everyone wants him to maximise what he can do. It is up to him now.
You clearly never plan to lose a No.1 pick after just a handful of years but in some situations you need to know when to walk away.
Sometimes the cost of an investment at the start can impact the decisions you make later on and the best thing you can do is fail fast and move on.
The Bulldogs knew he was a No.1 pick and that comes with a big cost but that would be soothed to a degree given they have a gun like Sam Darcy, with Aaron Naughton also in the forwardline.
After everything they have been through they would have wanted some clean air and a fresh start for Jamarra on the Gold Coast.
Zak Butters seems to be linked to plenty of clubs and I have written about him quite a bit it in this series but being from the western side of Victoria, namely Darley, he seems a great fit for the Bulldogs.
They are a good, stable club who always give pretty good value by always being in the finals race so it would be a good fit.
It was noted by plenty in the room at the Brownlow Medal that Butters spent a bit of time at the Bulldogs table, talking to players there.
It might mean nothing at the end of the day but recruiting can come from anywhere these days.
Some of these top-end players go back with opponents as far back as under-12 state sides.
Butters would be no different with that so he would know a lot of the players and would be close to people at every club.
Players can be your best recruiters from a sales point of view and it is always valuable to have high-end senior players who are natural on the sales side and can promote the club for you.
Senior players like Marcus Bontempelli or even Carlton’s Patrick Cripps, have enormous relationships with players across the competition and would be promoting their club wherever they can.
LIST OVERVIEW
List changes – In: Connor Budarick (Gold Coast), Lachlan Carmichael (draft No.21), Louis Emmett (draft No.27), Will Darcy (draft No.60).
Out: Jamarra Ugle-Hagan (Gold Coast), Taylor Duryea, Liam Jones (retired), Caleb Poulter, Anthony Scott, Jason Johannisen (delisted)
List gaps
There was plenty of talk in the off-season with Bulldogs on key backs.
It seems the Dogs went really hard at Cal Wilkie.
It would have been a huge get for them and it had a feel about it that it may have got a bit of traction.
In the end St Kilda started to stabilise and Wilkie stayed at Moorabbin.
Steven May was discussed externally but that didn’t eventuate and Buku Khamis was someone that was looking the other way to explore and get to Carlton.
But the Dogs didn’t get the pick they were after in those talks.
They drafted Louis Emmett as a tall defender and Will Darcy has played there a bit too.
Connor Budarick was someone they seemed really clear on.
He would have started to feel a bit of pressure with players coming to the Gold Coast and the Dogs are clear that they see him as a defender after he played a number of roles with the Suns.
There is a link there through new Dogs head of development Luke Power and the AFL’s national academy.
List strengths
There is no doubt the Dogs have some elite high-end talent on the books with Marcus Bontempelli and Ed Richards among the best midfielders in the game this year, and having scored more than any other club in 2025, if they can get a full year out of Sam Darcy will be hard to stop.
I have added Matt Kennedy into the B-graders for the Dogs after a strong first-up season a the club, kicking 21 goals from 23 games to finish sixth in the best-and-fairest.
Matt was a loved figure at Carlton and was traded to allow the Blues to get a bit more speed through their midfield to complement the likes of Cripps, Cerra, Hewett and Walsh.
Carlton was able to use the selection from the Kennedy trade to draft key defender Harry O’Farrell, who despite an ACL injury, looks to be a 10-year player for the club.
Some trades can end up a win-win for all players and clubs and I think this one sits in this category.
Draft result
It is getting harder to predict the draft these days because so much bidding is coming in and the talent this year was pretty even.
When you are going in to a draft you need to have multiple options for every player, you need to know who you would come up for and who you would go out for in terms of pick trades.
When it gets to your pick, if you have a number of players that you rate highly that are still on the board and may give you the opportunity to slide back a few slots knowing you will still get one of them.
They are all parts of recruiting now which isn’t just about the pick selection of where you place the players but that intelligence gathering is really important as well.
The Bulldogs managed to get a successful bid through for Lachlan Carmichael, out of Sydney’s academy, in the first round.
Most likely you only bid if that is your next best player, clubs aren’t playing games as much these days.
It may well be the club who can match the bid is in a position they can’t match.
You aren’t necessarily doing it to get the other club to pay more.
We saw during the draft this year it was the players in the middle tier of bids that went unmatched, where most of those at the top and bottom were matched.
That shows clubs may have planned for the top tier of players and matching points for those in the middle became too tricky.
The other consideration is that players may have just been available that they rate more highly than their own academy player.
Having watched a bit of Lachlan Carmichael, he is a smart player who has good sideways movement.
The Dogs took a couple of genuine talls with their other two picks.
Louis Emmett is a left-footed mobile big man from Oakleigh.
He had done some training in the pre-season with Richmond. It is good for these boys to get a bit of a taste of what AFL clubs are about and it really fast tracks their integration into club land.
Salary cap
Plenty of people will be looking at Sam Darcy as an ascendant force who could command a big uptick in his wage, especially in the wake of some of the massive contracts handed out this year.
Fortunately for the Bulldogs, Sam is signed until 2029 but these contracts aren’t just transactional, they are relationship-based as well.
Sam could arguably get the most money in the game in future years.
He will want to be paid what he is worth but he has an emotional connection to the club through his family’s long history at the Dogs.
From the club side of things, you need to monitor that he is paid at a fair and reasonable level because he will seriously be sought after.
You always get paid more to leave the club and you would think it would take a lot for him to even consider a move.
HIGH PERFORMANCE CHECK-IN
The Western Bulldogs had the league’s highest scoring offence last year and the 107.2 points per game they averaged at Marvel Stadium would have also topped the league for scoring if you only counted their 13 games under the roof.
The Dogs have 13 games there again in 2026, tied for the most with St Kilda.
They have taken advantage of playing under the roof and will want to build on that.
What may also work in their favour is the AFL’s rule changes aiming to speed the game up, such as the new last-disposal out-of-bounds free kick and faster kick-ins.
When opposition clubs prepare to play at Marvel Stadium, the conditions – or lack of them – aren’t discussed that much but perhaps it should be when playing against the Dogs.
Clubs can tailor their style and their speed and fitness to their home ground and it forces other clubs to adjust.
The Dogs have players that suit that faster style, with Bailey Dale and Ed Richards key to their attack last season, and they are a club that likes to get you with overlap run.
They might adjust to support the defensive side of their game, the Dogs ranked eighth for points against last year, which is not bad but could be an area for improvement.
It is always a delicate balance.
Coaches these days are very strength based, there will be a big focus on that attacking strength.
Clearly scoring heavily is good but at the same time the Dogs may try to set up more offence by the way they defend.
Often your defence sets up your attack and coaches sell that to players that doing the defensive work can actually help us kick more goals.
Coaches are always working through choices on ball movement and how to balance attack and defence, some clubs play with more of a down-the-line attacking style that can support the backline, while others go forward with more energy and take the ball off the line.
That is the art of coaching.
THE COACH’S BOX
The Bulldogs lost assistant coach Matt Spangher earlier this month, as he returned to Hawthorn only about a week away from the start of pre-season.
Losing a coach just before training restarts is never ideal but there is still plenty of time to work through it.
It might give the Dogs an opportunity to take a step back and have a look at how they structure things.
Given most clubs have filled their roles by now they could take a slower look at the market and find someone that suits what they are after.
They will miss Matt but will be able to make a replacement and clubs can move very quickly when they need to.
The appointment of Luke Power as head of development is an enormous get for the club, he is one of the most highly respected people I have ever seen working inside a football club.
He was a beloved figure at Carlton by players and staff – both football and administrative – he is a wonderful person to have at a club.
He also gets to work really closely with his brother Sam, which is a good opportunity for Luke.
FRONT OFFICE
The Bulldogs were once seen as a bit of an underdog but is a really attractive place now and they have built a real heartland.
Footscray really is inner-city Melbourne now and when you drive past the Whitten Oval, it is branded up well inside and our for sponsors and looks impressive.
They have a secret weapon in this area with their president Kylie Watson-Wheeler also the managing director of The Walt Disney Company in Australia and New Zealand.
The Dogs have done a great job of staying true to their character in Footscray while moving into the modern game and have climbed into a place that is really attractive for recruits.
It feels like the Dogs know who they are and they do it really well under CEO Ameet Bains.
Michael Regan has stepped up into more of a list manager role this year as Sam Power moved to the football GM job and I was impressed with how Michael handled himself this off-season.
They are very different roles, the list manager role is a good grounding to be a football manager but the big difference in the role is the staff management
The football manager’s role you have a pretty big staff group of 50-100, and four teams normally across AFL, AFLW, VFL and VFLW.
You are across a lot more decisions but as a list manager you are having to make some pretty significant decisions but less of them.
Having the comfort of someone like Sam who has done the role before would be a definite advantage, you need to let them do their role.
You are there for support and probably know the right questions to ask
Originally published as The Footy Boss: An in-depth look at all aspects of the Western Bulldogs
Stadium finally approved after marathon debate
