AFL Grand Final 2016: Mark Robinson says underdogs of 1954 now wonder Dogs of 2016
THIS was 55 years of tears rolled out on one remarkable day for not only the Western Bulldogs, but for all who love football, writes MARK ROBINSON.
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THEY scrapped and scrapped and then danced, cried and hugged.
This was the hugging premiership.
This was 55 years of tears rolled out on one remarkable day for not only the Western Bulldogs, but for all who love football.
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They say the happiest days in your life are when your children are born and when you get divorced. Now there’s a third for Western Bulldogs fans: October 1, 2016.
In just under two hours, the underdogs since ’54 became the wonder dogs of ’16.
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The scenes at the MCG at dusk, and most certainly around the pubs, clubs and loungerooms all around Australia, were of delirious emotion.
While most Bulldogs supporters erupted in sheer excitement and relief at the siren and were still singing and dancing as “Sons of the West’’ rattled around the grandstands of the MCG, some stood stunned, almost disbelieving.
‘Why not us?’, they asked.
Why not indeed.
Seriously, how many of the of the 99,981 at the MCG can die happy now?
The players are now immortals.
They will long live beside the heroes of ’54 after delivering the Bulldogs just their second premiership since joining the VFL-AFL in 1925.
And if the players are immortals, what can be said of the coach Luke Beveridge.
If we wondered why the players love Beveridge, we wonder no more.
The million-dollar kid with a million and a half critics, Tom Boyd, stood up when he was needed most. 
The crying had stopped when Beveridge summoned injured skipper Bob Murphy to the stage to present him with the coach’s medal.
It was magnanimous and selfless from a man in touch with what’s precious in life.
Murphy became a bystander after Round 3 when he injured his knee, but in that moment on the podium, with the premiership cup in one hand, he became a part of history. Dare we say it was rascallish by the coach.
It’s often said reputations are made and lost in finals football and that’s exactly what happened.
The million-dollar kid with a million and a half critics, Tom Boyd, stood up when he was needed most.
His 60m bomb for goal in the final quarter, which effectively ended the contest, was more like Wayne Carey than Tom Boyd. Clearly Carey was impressed; he gave Boyd the top votes in the Norm Smith Medal, which was won by the dashing Jason Johannisen.
It wasn’t only the goal. Boyd took some powerful marks in the third quarter and the pulsating final quarter and finished with eight for the match, three goals, and 15 possessions.
Johannisen’s run and rebound was immense, Jackson Macrae had another 30-plus disposals, Liam Picken kicked three goals and endeared himself even more if that was possible and the veterans, Dale Morris and Matthew Boyd, were pillars in defence.
The skipper Easton Wood was another.
He set the tone in the first quarter when he went at Kieren Jack in a marking contest and did so again at the start of the final quarter, when he crunched into Daniel Hannebery.
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It was a torrid contest and Wood’s moments were huge in symbolism and direction.
The game was robbed of Lance Franklin.
The Swans champ rolled an ankle and was off the ground getting treatment inside five minutes.
He returned five minutes later, but was in the rooms at the quarter-time break and probably got a jab.
He had just six touches to the main break and 16 for the match and, significantly, just the one goal.
His opponent Joel Hamling probably didn’t sleep Friday night, might not sleep after the game, but when he eventually puts head to pillow, he should be damn proud of his performance.
It was a game of swinging momentum and the largest margin was the final margin — 22 points.
The Dogs led at quarter-time. The commentary in the build-up was about how the Swans started so well in terms of intensity and scores and that if the Dogs could be with them at quarter-time, they’d have a strong chance at victory. They led by four points.
The second quarter was scrappy, so was the third and so was the first 22 minutes of the final quarter.
In the second term, the Bulldogs extended their lead to 15 points before the Swans kicked four goals in six minutes, including two to Josh Kennedy.
He was the bolter for the Norm Smith Medal at halftime, before Johannisen bolted away with it.
The final quarter was mesmeric.
Franklin kicked the first goal of the quarter and Jake Stringer the second, a clutch snap with two opponents bearing down on him. It was Stringer’s ninth and biggest possession of his match.
When Sydney’s George Hewett responded two minutes later to make the scores just one point, it was the biggest kick of his short career.
Indeed, the five minutes from when Hewett kicked his goal to when Liam Picken kicked his goal in the 17th-minute was immense. Players from both sides threw themselves at the contest, unblinking and unyielding, and soon enough one team would crack.
It wasn’t the Bulldogs.
They kicked the final three goals of the game and then started the crying. And the hugging. And most certainly the drinking.
And good luck to them because this was not only a game of football. This was a life-changer.
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