Footy Sucks when we suck.

[jeemak]

I guess when you've been a passionate supporter for so long like all of us here, you build up hope and expectations because of the talk from other supporters, from media, from the club, the more passionate about the you are the more it hurts i guess, we see other clubs have sustained success like Geelong and Sydney, Collingwood never stay down too long so why not us? with us thankfully we all witnessed the ultimate success after the heartbreak of many Prelim losses ('85 and '97 burnt for many years) and reaching another GF, but 100 years and two flags to show for it is, you know, crap!

For once i'd love our club to be the best in the comp, we have never been the best, yeah 2 flags and that's great but never finished on top, and we don't have to dominate every club and every game (would be nice to) but we get good, but we also drop just as fast.

Funny thing is, in Bevo's time, its our most sustained successful time in the competition yet look how much he cops, which i understand because we just have to be better than what we are.

Counting backwards we've made finals in 2022, 2021 (GF), 2020, 2019, 2016 (GF/Premiership) and 2015 under Bevo's reign. During that time we've rebuilt once, and in our most recent iteration are clearly trying to build again.

Prior to that we made preliminary finals in 2008, 2009 and 2010, plus finals in 2006 and probably should have done a bit more in 2009. Under Wallace we made prelims in 1997 and 1998, and finals in 1999 and 2000.

Like anyone I'd have loved to have made more of our finals appearances and season finishing opportunities under all of our coaches, but it's a tough competition and we have a lot of structural issues holding us back that we have to fight against at a competition level. We share a home ground that every team plays at all the time, we rarely play at the G in massive matches. We struggle to attract big names, we have no real advocacy in the media landscape (even our veteran players are media apologists when you think about it).

While I'm not suggesting we should be comfortable or happy with our lot, and our results, I'm of the view we're at different times an easy punching bag for the media (particularly with an intellectual as a coach who doesn't kiss arse to the media cabal) and supporters of the major clubs. And we buy into the narrative, notwithstanding we've never had it so good as supporters.

So it's great that we have high expectations and strive for more as supporters. But getting involved in the media bullshit and being miserable about it when things aren't going exactly to plan (we were one game and four per cent out of fifth last year - but apparently we're in crisis) is pretty much like jumping into a sandpit without any pants on and being upset because you got sand in your vagina. Just don't do it in the first place.

I'm just saying life is better if you ignore the noise. The noise can't help you control anything, and just makes you angry. You can also think more clearly if it's out of your mind.

[Boots]

I often wonder if beginning my time as a supporter in 2016 gives me a false sense of what the team is capable of or what 'success' is, so I can usually write this feeling off for myself at least as an irrational one. But I do agree with MJP's excellent summation of the problem in the thread title, noting that I didn't even watch the game on the weekend, just the worm on the AFL app turning an annoyingly predictable shape. I realised that my own resignation to our flat performances has become normal, which made me quite sad

I think Jee is right to point out that your pass mark can't be dominating the competition. At some stage valiant losses played with heart have to be OK or we'll all go out of our minds.

On the other hand, a few people here have pointed out that the way we play footy right now is 'boring' and I think that's both completely right and really relevant to the problem. BT and Brayshaw may be mouth-farting imbeciles, the footy media more broadly might be full of sycophants and imbeciles, the music and light show at games might be really, really annoying - but if we still played with heart we wouldn't care.

I think we all want to feel about our team like Geelong supporters do about theirs, or maybe more realistically like Swans supporters do - but I keep asking myself, what does it feel like to be a St Kilda supporter? Or (god help us) a Carlton supporter? Obviously the Bulldogs are not those teams - we have our own history and love the club for it. But we might need to find a way to be OK with being a mid-table team again after 2016.

But then again, it does depend on some of our more electric players being given license or finding form to play to their best again. That really does seem missing from the team since 2021.

[1eyedog]

It's stating the obvious, but I hate footy when we play bad.

I don't want to watch/listen to any of the post game stuff because I just don't want to hear the negativity...as for the pre-game predictions, well, I don't want to hear all the ways it's gonna break down (again).

Why was I looking forward to this again?

Feel very much the same and dropped into quite a deep depression from the start of the second quarter through to today. I just expected so much more given the changes to the coaching panel and all the diatribe from Bains et al. across Summer.

The loss itself isn't really a governing factor for how I'm feeling it's a cumulative effect. The hype leading into the season (I get every club does this but we had a decent overhaul which spawned new expectations), the non-selections leading into Round 1 were head scratching to me and then just watching us get rag-dolled by none other than Melbourne of all teams - it was a genuine knife twisting event to sit through for me and the kids.

I know the players try their guts out but Melbourne just worked harder and wanted the win more than we did and that is very, very disappointing. Our lack of defensive run was particularly upsetting.

Ah well.

[ledge]

Nothing worse than going into work and the team you just lost to is packed with their fans.

[Grantysghost]

Feel very much the same and dropped into quite a deep depression from the start of the second quarter through to today. I just expected so much more given the changes to the coaching panel and all the diatribe from Bains et al. across Summer.

The loss itself isn't really a governing factor for how I'm feeling it's a cumulative effect. The hype leading into the season (I get every club does this but we had a decent overhaul which spawned new expectations), the non-selections leading into Round 1 were head scratching to me and then just watching us get rag-dolled by none other than Melbourne of all teams - it was a genuine knife twisting event to sit through for me and the kids.

I know the players try their guts out but Melbourne just worked harder and wanted the win more than we did and that is very, very disappointing. Our lack of defensive run was particularly upsetting.

Ah well.

I felt this one more than I usually do.

Sick of playing Melbourne rd 1, always at their home ground - now on the back of a game under their belts.

Plus we started so well, for 15 mins we could believe, then.....normal service resumed.

We need to play players who give a shit, not laconic blokes who somehow keep getting games whilst not performing.

The rhetoric around fittest, hungriest blah blah blah...God that aged well.

[mighty_west]

The rhetoric around fittest, hungriest blah blah blah...God that aged well.

Yeah that comment whilst sounding inspiring at the time was fraught with danger, what if our most ready players weren't necessarily the best for match up's etc (Buku on Brown), even though i see Keath now as a break glass option and with JOD and Gardner not available surely it was that time to break the glass for the Brown match up even though Buku played well in the Hawks games and was "more ready".

[bornadog]

The rhetoric around fittest, hungriest blah blah blah...God that aged well.

This is being misquoted by many people. Check the vid



"Our FITTEST, STRONGEST & MOST READY Team"

[Grantysghost]

This is being misquoted by many people. Check the vid



"Our FITTEST, STRONGEST & MOST READY Team"

That's even worse than what I said

[bulldogsthru&thru]

That's even worse than what I said

The 2016 squad said hold my beer and sent in the 2016 finals DVD.

[EasternWest]

That's even worse than what I said

Lols.

[mighty_west]

This is being misquoted by many people. Check the vid



"Our FITTEST, STRONGEST & MOST READY Team"

That quote has certainly bitten Bevo on the backside, we looked far from being fit enough, hungry enough and if that was our most ready team (eeek!), round 1 early days i know but as a supporter it still feels like a punch in the guts after watching Sunday's game, but you know, we get back up again and believe we can knock off those Suns.

[MrMahatma]

This is being misquoted by many people. Check the vid



"Our FITTEST, STRONGEST & MOST READY Team"

If his job was to make the team the fittest, strongest and most ready... then he failed. Miserably.

[ledge]

If his job was to make the team the fittest, strongest and most ready... then he failed. Miserably.

Maybe we were , just means our first 9 years of him in charge must have been horrible. :-)

[hujsh]

If his job was to make the team the fittest, strongest and most ready... then he failed. Miserably.

Maybe we just didn't look fit and ready because our opponents just played an AFL match then had a 10 day break after being spanked while we were stuck playing the Hawks twice in practice matches.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Maybe we just didn't look fit and ready because our opponents just played an AFL match then had a 10 day break after being spanked while we were stuck playing the Hawks twice in practice matches.

I think there's no question all that played a part in the historically low performance.

What's harder to swallow is the fact we've seen all this countless times before without those excuses so I don't have much confidence this sort of stuff won't be a regular issue going forward.