Shane Crawford: Western Bulldogs must strengthen their spine by chasing James Frawley

Shane Crawford
Herald Sun
August 23, 2014 8:00PM


I’M not going to go out on a limb and say the Western Bulldogs will be a definite premiership chance within three years, but with their stockpile of young midfielders, it is enough to get anyone excited about the future.

What might stop them from contending in that time is the spine.

That’s why the Bulldogs should launch a “Chase Chip” campaign in an effort to secure Melbourne defender James Frawley.

MODEST SEASON COULD REDUCE FRAWLEY COMPO

To convince “Chip” Frawley that a move out west might be good for his career, Bulldogs coach Brendan McCartney should sit down with him in front of a whiteboard and show him what the Dogs’ line-up might look like in 2017.

Frawley has had a modest 2014 campaign for Melbourne. Picture: George Salpigtidis

It won’t include Matthew Boyd, Robert Murphy, Daniel Giansiracusa or Dale Morris and is unlikely to have Adam Cooney, either, because his body has faced its share of wear and tear, or Liam Picken.

Will Minson is a line-ball call. He will be 32, and by that stage, the Dogs might have Tom Campbell or another young ruckman coming through. Campbell has been given the job for today’s game against the Swans after Minson was dropped.

What really excites me about the Bulldogs is the way they have been able to claim some seriously good young midfielders. Some of them could become absolute stars.

Tom Liberatore is one of the best contested-ball players in the competition. He’s a star, we know that, and still has improvement left in him.

Marcus Bontempelli is the favourite to win this year’s AFL Rising Star award. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

Marcus Bontempelli and Jack Macrae could be among the best five midfielders going round by 2017. That’s got to be exciting for the Bulldogs fans who might be getting more than a bit frustrated by the inconsistencies.

The Bulldogs have never had a Rising Star winner, but I’m convinced Bontempelli will win this year. Just give him the medal now and be done with it.

He reminds me a little of a young Anthony Koutoufides, who had that rare capacity to take games by the scruff of the neck when his team needed it.

I don’t think it is a stretch to say Bontempelli, who is not yet 19, could be the best player in the AFL by the end of 2017. Big call? Yes. Impossible? No way. He looks to be a rare talent.

And how many 20-year-olds accumulate possessions the way Macrae does? He had 43 touches against Gold Coast this year and has had more than 500 touches so far this season.

There is a lot of hard work to do for the Dogs, and still some more inconsistency and pain to come, but the path they are taking is the right one, and if they convince Frawley of that, and perhaps claim a free agent forward the following year, footy’s longest current premiership drought — now 60 years — might come to an end.

Frawley should be considered a crucial recruiting target because he would not only provide strong support down back, but he could, at times, go forward himself, or allow Jordan Roughead to do the same.

The Dogs’ search for a key forward had been centred on luckless Giant Jonathon Patton, but the fact he suffered his second serious knee injury last weekend ended that.

There had been reports the Dogs were prepared to punt $900,000 a season on Patton, though that changed this week when the Giants locked him in until the end of 2017.

McCartney now must fix his attention on another big power forward. They don’t grow on trees, but if they can find one, the path ahead would look a lot brighter.

The Dogs got Stewart Crameri last October, which has worked OK, but they need a monster up forward to cause more damage.

Frawley and Roughead can pinch-hit in defence and attack, and that might be an option until the Dogs can either trade for, or develop, a player capable of kicking bags of goals.

Some have suggested Frawley, who will be 26 in a couple of weeks, might prove a risk. I don’t think so. You can lose form, but you don’t lose talent.

Frawley has been linked with a few Victorian clubs, including Geelong.

I wouldn’t worry about the fact he struggled this season — I’d put that down to "contractitis", the same affliction that affected Collingwood’s Travis Cloke in 2012.

Cloke chose to stay; Frawley will almost certainly leave.

I wouldn’t offer crazy money for him; instead, I would be offering a longer-term deal than others — such as Geelong, Hawthorn and Gold Coast — might.

The whiteboard approach once worked for Alastair Clarkson, by the way. It’s exactly what he did soon after he took over at Hawthorn in late 2004.

He had the Hawks’ potential next premiership side up on a board and it’s fair to say a few noses were immediately out of joint.

Mine was one of them — he left my name out, as he did with a number of senior players.

It made most of us decide there and then that we would be part of that next Hawks flag, and, luckily enough, I was still there in 2008.

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