Western Bulldogs fairytale premiership win a breath of fresh air for AFL
THE purity of Luke Beveridge’s Bulldogs was as refreshing for the AFL as it was remarkable, and the premiership win didn’t come a moment too soon, writes Glenn McFarlane.
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AS far as football summits go, this was Everest with a few extra metres added in for a degree of difficulty.
The Western Bulldogs — the club that the league tried to merge almost beyond recognition a generation ago, and the team that, two years ago, was without a coach, a captain and collective confidence — have provided the AFL with the greatest fairytale the game has ever known.
And it hasn’t come a moment too soon.
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After several seasons mired down by the Essendon sports supplements scandal and with the predictability of the usual suspects playing off for premierships, the purity of Luke Beveridge’s Bulldogs was as refreshing as it was remarkable.
BEVERIDGE LAUDS DOGS’ AMAZING PERFORMANCE
They were, quite literally, a bolt from the red, white and blue.
Yesterday ended 55 years without a Grand Final appearance, and 62 years since their previous one and only premiership back in 1954.
That was so long ago — Bob Menzies was Prime Minister back then after all — that the premiership cup, as it is now, didn’t even exist.
The 1954 cup is a modern version crafted after the fact; the 2016 companion cup presented to acting captain Easton Wood, coach Luke Beveridge as well as injured skipper Bob Murphy is very much the real thing.
No team had embraced their past and their future as emphatically, and confidently, as this Bulldogs outfit has. They confronted the challenge ahead of them yesterday, and turned the hype that has melted other side into an advantage that Beveridge never tried to quell.
‘I MAY HAVE BROKEN MY BACK ... BUT WHO CARES’
Forget about ‘The Year of the Dog’. This remaking — ‘Beveridge’s Babes’ — will be deserving of a Steven Spielberg classic with the human emotion that should have an audience stretching far beyond the realms and borders of AFL football.
Beveridge might well be the coach with the ‘Midas’ touch, but even after he was showered with Gatorade after the final siren sounded, he was still heaping praise back on the men — young and old — who he has inspired.
“It all comes down to the players,” said Beveridge, who has now been a part of eight premierships from 11 seasons as a coach, assistant coach and development coach at the Bulldogs, St Bede’s Mentone, Collingwood and Hawthorn.
DOGS WIN FIRST PREMIERSHIP IN 62 YEARS
How he managed to unite what was a fractured group with few admirers into a premiership force in the space of 687 days as coach is just a part of this incredible tale.
“We know how long you have waited for success ... to you, the fans, our supporters ... we felt like the Beatles,” Beveridge said.
“We have ridden on your wings.”
The Beatles didn’t exist as a band the last time the Dogs won a flag before yesterday.
Fittingly, he brought Murphy onto the stage at the cup presentation, and put the Jock McHale Medal — for the premiership coach — around his neck.
It was the most stirring of moments.
There were stories and subplots everywhere you looked as these 22 Bulldogs players and their coach enshrined themselves in football immortality.
Beveridge saved the careers of veterans Matthew Boyd and Liam Picken, who were effectively told that their days were done. Yesterday, they repaid the faith.
Now, Picken has what his father, Bill, fought so hard for but couldn’t in five Grand Finals for Collingwood in the late 1970s and ‘80s — for no wins, four losses and a draw.
Bill left his farm near Coleraine yesterday with his family for the chance to come and watch his son make history.
Unfashionable and almost unstoppable this finals series, Picken did his dad proud: “Probably, a couple of years ago, you wouldn’t have thought this could have happened.
“But you can turn things around pretty quickly. Injuries have gone against us, but it has brought us closer together.”
Boyd said: “I had to wait 280-odd games to play in a Grand Final, and I am glad we did it (won the flag) in the first go.”
AFL GRAND FINAL PLAYER RATINGS: WESTERN BULLDOGS
Some critics wanted Tom Boyd to take a voluntary pay cut to his million dollar deal at stages of the season, but he was worth every single dollar invested yesterday.
He came of age on the grandest stage of all with three goals. He and Zaine Cordy were both suspended by the club over an altercation earlier in the year; now they are premiership teammates.
“Success was always on my mind (in coming to the Bulldogs),” Boyd said.
“I had so much belief in the young fellas here. When Bevo came on board, it was a dream come true ... he has been such a positive influence.
“The thing with Luke is that he is keen to be a part of us, he is definitely a players’ coach.
“When you go through struggles, he goes through them with you.”
Cordy, one of three sons of former Bulldogs in yesterday’s side, added: “We had to knuckle down and move on ... these things happen. Tom and I are not only great friends, we’re Grand Final teammates.”
Marcus Bontempelli is a premiership player at 20. That’s younger than Ted Whitten was when he was a part of the Bulldogs’ 1954 flag. “I’m elated,” he said. “We’ve achieved something special together.”
At various stages of the season, injuries looked like they might mean the end of the season for a few of the Bulldogs, including Norm Smith Medallist Jason Johannisen, Tom Liberatore and Jack Macrae. Each showed their resilience by not only returning, but contributing so much.
Clay Smith feared his career was over he had his third knee reconstruction early last year. But his coach and his club believed in him, and he paid it back in spades.
UNDERDOGS OF ‘54 NOW WONDERDOGS OF 2016
His best mate, Dale Walkinshaw, died recently and Smith delivered the eulogy to his school mate during the week.
“This footy club is like my second family,” the passionate Smith said. “That’s probably the best thing about footy. It is somewhere you can escape from it, you just get out there and everything else goes away.”
Josh Dunkley could have been playing for Sydney yesterday. His dad, Andrew, was a member of the Swans’ losing Grand Final 20 years ago, but the Dogs believed in him more. Now he is a premiership player in his debut season.
Beveridge was appointed coach of the Bulldogs in November 2014. The day after he was named as coach, he told the Herald Sun: “We will be reaching for the sky.”
PICTURE SPECIAL: HOW THE DOGS DID IT
Well, he and his Bulldogs touched the sky yesterday, and with Murphy back in harness next year, and other players to either return or mature further, they might push into even more rarefied air in 2017.
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