The Western Bulldogs clan will travel to Sydney’s west with the belief that anything is possible
IT’S TIME for the experts who said the Dogs had lost their way two years ago to put up their hands — this writer included, writes MARK ROBINSON.
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BY hook or by crook, the Western Bulldogs clan, as Bob Murphy likes to call them, will travel to Sydney’s west this weekend on what can only be described as an adventure for the believers.
Coach Luke Beveridge is the clan leader, the alpha dog, and he leads a pack of young, hungry and desperate Bulldogs who, not for the first time, have the greater football public barracking for them.
How many of the greater clan get there will be interesting.
Bulldogs president Peter Gordon is hell-bent on ensuring as many fans as possible get there.
“We’re talking about car-pooling, we’re going to talk to V/Line about what deals they can do, we want to talk to Virgin ... our aim is to make it as big as possible,’’ Gordon told the Herald Sun.
“We’ve also got a number of buses booked already, they’ll be leaving at 4am. It might be one bus or 20 buses. If enough people want to do it, we might put on buses the day before and put them up in hotels the night before.’’
The clan is gathering.
There is always an underdog and that’s exactly what the Bulldogs are this weekend.
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Everyone was warned to fear the barbarians to the north as they would be charging over the border sooner rather than later. But before they get here, the Bulldogs have to go there.
Greater Western Sydney will be a formidable opponent. Their team is laced with talent, toughness and belief. You can moan all you like about draft and salary cap concessions, but it is wasted breath. The fact is they hold home-ground advantage, are coached well by Leon Cameron and play with spirit and ferocity.
The same is said of the Bulldogs.
Bulldog supporters must be proud — and those who don’t barrack for the Bulldogs must wish their team played like the Bulldogs.
There is much to admire, but there’s no greater admiration than for the most talked about 20-year-old in the competition.
We know Marcus Bontempelli is special.
We especially know that when Leigh Matthews starts gushing about him. Several times over the weekend, the GOAT said there were men at 20 and boys at 30 and ‘’Bontempelli is a man’’.
Just why has Bontempelli captured our imagination?
There’s such affection that simply saying his surname makes people nod their heads in acknowledgment.
He’s a star, no doubt. On the field, he’s relentless, he keeps on the move, puts his body in and is always seemingly in a perpetual state of tiredness. But this kid doesn’t stop. He wins hardballs, groundballs and fires out handballs with opponents hanging off him.
He stands out because football these days is about playing a role, yet Bontempelli goes beyond that. He is a beacon of leadership. When he stripped Hawthorn’s Luke Hodge of the handball on Friday night, the romantics called it the passing of the baton, the same when he outmarked Hodge on the forward flank.
He’s been compared to plenty of players, but it’s Jobe Watson for me. The wow aspect is that Bontempelli is doing at 20 what Watson delivered at 27 — the age Watson was when he won the Brownlow Medal.
Off the field, Bontempelli is a considered media performer.
He speaks with a drawl, but it is underlined by articulate offerings. Why not us, he pondered on Channel 7 on Sunday. “We carry the same belief and motto with us, why not us, why can’t it be us? We don’t have the answers right now, but hopefully the answers will come out on the field.’’
He doesn’t sound like a kid overwhelmed by the pressure of a preliminary final. Mind you, at his age, isn’t everything an adventure?
Wonderful stories abound at the Bulldogs despite the joint being in turmoil at the end of 2014.
Observations were made, including this one on twitter from this writer:
Dogs lost captain, coach, no.6, integrity, respect and generally lost their way .. And they bring in Boyd on a mill a year... #goodluck
— Mark Robinson (@Robbo_heraldsun) October 15, 2014
Good luck? Forty-odd games later and they are playing in preliminary final. Humble pie eaten — although the million bucks is still a talking point.
Anyway, four teams remain standing.
The banged-up Sydney Swans could be missing some players when they take on Geelong on Friday night, but Chris Scott can’t be thinking about that too much. He has to worry about what the replacements will do.
The Swans will be worried about Patrick Dangerfield, Joel Selwood, Tom Hawkins and Steven Motlop, while Scott in turn saw the might of the Swans midfielders on Saturday night and he’d be wondering if his men can match their men in the clinches.
It will be the first time these two teams have played against each other at the MCG since 1934, according to stats guru Joshua Kay.
That day, a preliminary final, saw South Melbourne beat the Cats by 60 points. Bob Pratt kicked six and Laurie Nash and Ossie Bertram four each.
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That’s what we like about finals, we yearn for the present and note the past.
At the Giants, their past and present is rolled into one era, which is kind of exciting and kind of disbelieving.
And if it’s an adventure for the Dogs, then what is it for a team who played its first official game just four years ago.
Originally published as The Western Bulldogs clan will travel to Sydney’s west with the belief that anything is possible
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