It's probably just me, but this team is hard to love!

[mjp]

I don't EXACTLY know how to put my finger on it, but for some reason the 'dogs post 2017 have been really HARD to LOVE.

2016 we were easy to love. 2017 those players had some cash in the supporter love bank. But from 2018 onwards...

Don't get me wrong - there are players who I think are amazing (Bont), but apart from Libba, Naughts and Caleb, I really just don't "love 'em". I don't know why.

I mean, I loved Dunks but the whole Essendon thing has soured me on him.
I WANT to love Gardner because of his battler status but somehow I just don't.
Tim is just too pretty and is the antithesis of the Hudson style ruckman who I have always been drawn too.
Bailey S? Umm. I don't know...the Cotton On stuff? Really? I guess it could be those stupid ads for tradie underwear or whatever but I just wonder who is advising him and what REALLY matters to him? Is footy as important to him as it appeared it was pre- draft???
Bailey Dale frustrated me so much as a forward that I still can't QUITE get there.
Jacko sooks it up when things aren't going his way.
Bailey Williams was there for me but something isn't right with him since the mid-point of last year...
Alex Keath is great - but somehow seems 'un-bulldog-like' - and just like things being 'un-strayan' I can't even really define what it means.
Westy is nearly there for me but the whole stuff with his Dad in the media last year was off putting.
Cody will no doubt be there but he DOES throw his head back for free-kicks and that is frustrating ('cos he DOESN'T need to do it).

I could go through the team but I will stop there...I guess there have been some games - think the way we finished the regular season last year - where the team just seems to play without care. And whilst I KNOW back in the old days we were terrible on a regular basis I just seem to remember that when the great coaches of my life were in charge (Wallace, Eade) we simply took care of business when we needed too...I still remember a headline from the Herald Sun once upon a time that said "Dogs have TRUE GRIT - What about the Rest" from the Wallace era after we won a Friday nighter vs North in what was an incredibly tight season.

Friday night? I mean, I got it wrong...I actually said that the forwards wouldn't get us, but our inability to stop kicking it to Stewart would. So much for that. But I had NO expectation we would win and was 100% not surprised when Geelong came out and kicked 3x coast-to-coast goals. And on top of that, every AFLW player we have is leaving to go 'somewhere else' and it's just doing my head in. Sure, of the past 5x 100+ point victories in the AFL we have had 4x of them...but that just re-inforces my feelings that we are flat track bullies who run their hardest when the ball is 'bouncing their way'.

Is it just me? Man, I hope it is.

[DOG GOD]

It’s not just you MJP. Some players I can’t gel with..most of those not deserving a game, let alone being AFL players, and yes I know, every team has them, but what I also don’t love is the blatant (well in my eyes) arrogance of team selection. And this isn’t on the players…so maybe it’s the MC I just can’t “love” , and my man crush for Bailey Dale and his normally elite kicking will continue

[jeemak]

I referred to them as the most dishonest team I have seen play for the club in my decades of watching it.

So no, it's not just you.

Effort is conditional for this group, concentration is conditional for this group and reliable skill execution of the absolute basics is conditional for this group.

Very difficult to like, and outside of all the bullshit fan experience a major reason why I don't go to games.

[jeemak]

I referred to them as the most dishonest team I have seen play for the club in my decades of watching it.

So no, it's not just you.

Effort is conditional for this group, concentration is conditional for this group and reliable skill execution of the absolute basics is conditional for this group.

Very difficult to like, and outside of all the bullshit fan experience a major reason why I don't go to games.

To clarify, I still love the players (and the club)......but it doesn't mean they make it easy to like them all of the time.

What they dished up in the first quarter on Friday night was inexcusable. The rest of the game was actually pretty good given the task they had in front of them after the first five minutes of the second quarter. It's just what we saw in the first quarter happens too often with them and it's not OK.

[Jeanette54]

I referred to them as the most dishonest team I have seen play for the club in my decades of watching it.

Count yourself lucky that you aren't old enough to remember them playing when Royce Hart was coaching. That was the only time since 1959, that there was no reason to continue to follow them. For some reason, masochism perhaps, I still went every week at the time.

[bornadog]

Count yourself lucky that you aren't old enough to remember them playing when Royce Hart was coaching. That was the only time since 1959, that there was no reason to continue to follow them. For some reason, masochism perhaps, I still went every week at the time.

Same

[chef]

I feel like this group can't be trusted, effort is optional and maybe it's time for Bevo to dump a few big name guys to make a statement.

Makes you wonder how we made the GF last year with this group.

[Happy Days]

Nah I like em. I think Dunkley is a bit of a square but otherwise think they’re all pretty solid. Not like they’ve copped charges or anything.

[MrMahatma]

I love ‘em.

They frustrate me cause this is quickly moving into wasted season territory and we could actually have won so many more matches than we have.

End of the day though, I love ‘em.

[Grantysghost]

It's an interesting statement. We had a player that for mine was a pretty "Bulldog" type player in Trengove and we treated him like shit.
For a guy like that to leave with sour grapes makes me wonder what the culture is like behind closed doors as he was salt of the earth.
Clearly not a star, and expected to be 18-22 but he was genuinely baffled by his non selection at times (I got this first hand).
No one likes being "retired" but I think type that could've handled it if done right. Not sure I'm on thread with that but I'll leave it there xD
More on topic, there is a bit of truth in what you say for me. It's a hard team to connect with presently.

is it the pathway? Is it where these kids are coming from that makes them less "Everyman"? Less gritty? Bailey Smith is the antitheses of Bulldog.

[Hotdog60]

It's an interesting statement. We had a player that for mine was a pretty "Bulldog" type player in Trengove and we treated him like shit.
For a guy like that to leave with sour grapes makes me wonder what the culture is like behind closed doors as he was salt of the earth.
Clearly not a star, and expected to be 18-22 but he was genuinely baffled by his non selection at times (I got this first hand).
No one likes being "retired" but I think type that could've handled it if done right. Not sure I'm on thread with that but I'll leave it there xD
More on topic, there is a bit of truth in what you say for me. It's a hard team to connect with presently.

is it the pathway? Is it where these kids are coming from that makes them less "Everyman"? Less gritty? Bailey Smith is the antitheses of Bulldog.

Speak for yourself I'm hanging out for it 44 years of work and I'm ready do want I want to do.

Sorry you were talking about footballers

[Grantysghost]

Speak for yourself I'm hanging out for it 44 years of work and I'm ready do want I want to do.

Sorry you were talking about footballers

Ha gold.

[bornadog]

It's an interesting statement. We had a player that for mine was a pretty "Bulldog" type player in Trengove and we treated him like shit.
For a guy like that to leave with sour grapes makes me wonder what the culture is like behind closed doors as he was salt of the earth.
Clearly not a star, and expected to be 18-22 but he was genuinely baffled by his non selection at times (I got this first hand).
No one likes being "retired" but I think type that could've handled it if done right. Not sure I'm on thread with that but I'll leave it there xD
More on topic, there is a bit of truth in what you say for me. It's a hard team to connect with presently.

is it the pathway? Is it where these kids are coming from that makes them less "Everyman"? Less gritty? Bailey Smith is the antitheses of Bulldog.

Trengove was past his best

[Grantysghost]

Trengove was past his best

He was dropped when he was at his best for us in 2019 which wasn't terrible form.
I was speaking more about his character and how it ended non amicably.

[soupman]

I think MJP your opening post targets the wrong culprit. It isn't the players individually that are hard to love, I'd argue they are no different to any other era and could just as easily make similiar comments about say our 2009 side. It's them as a collective, or rather the "team" that is hard to love.

These players are frustrating because as a team they are frustrating.

It's one of the three main reasons we are difficult to follow.

One, our gameplan. Our gameplan is centred around trying to dominate in the middle, ping the ball around and through sustained pressure and volume of possession overwhelm the opposition. When it works it's great, when it doesn't work there is no resilience in the system and we are super vulnerable. If we are not "on" we are as off as any other team in the comp, see the end of the GF or the first quarter this week. It makes it so much harder to like our players on an individual basis when they are frequently exposed in crucial moments as not being up to it because our gameplan generates endless crucial moments to test them out with. Jed Bews at Geelong is shithouse but never gets put in scenarios where he has to win crucial contests or kick an important goal because their gameplan actively avoids putting him and his type in those scenarios. Meanwhile Robbie McComb or Zaine Cordy constantly get asked to perform crucial functions for us because of the way we set up.

Two, the chance we give ourselves off field. Our list management and MC are a shitshow. We continually do not help ourselves. Namely our refusal to address our list imbalances and our MC madness where we furiously buck convention every chance we get which is good if it works but looks terrible if it doesn't. This means the players who are entrusted to perform these roles get judged harshly, because they aren't the players that should be performing them. Mitch Hannan playing as the blocking tall/second ruck gets killed on here, yet the role he is being asked to play is challenging to say the least. Gardner is the best lock down defender we have got outside of Keath and thus is continually asked to outperform his ability, there's only so long that you can root for the underdog before getting shitty that Gardner is again not up to it up against someone like Tom Hawkins or Jeremy Cameron. Even someone like the incredibly likeable Buku Khamis who was so fun to watch in the first one or two games he played forward is going to see the tide turn as we get frustrated that this kid who is being asked to play as our second main marking target and second ruck is not able to deliver in any meaningful manner.

Three, we can't trust them as a collective. This team has big flaws as a group. It's hard to pinpoint individuals because they do these things en mass. The cause; maybe attitude, maybe lack of leadership, maybe a high intensity gameplan that is difficult to get up for every quarter every week and asks a lot of them execution wise. We continually ask them to play out of their skins to beat anyone decent. We never play well on cruise mode, that must be difficult to do. Regardless as a collective it feels like sometimes our pressure isn't there, nor our willingness to win, plus we have so few players that genuinely feel like they do not accept failure. Libba is maybe the only one who can drag us through a shit patch of form/attitude. We cannot trust these guys to always turn up, or to just get the job done even when they aren't "on". We are not a professional outfit in that sense like Geelong has been for over a decade, or Hawthorn were in their times of dominance, or like Sydney have virtually always been.

All the above breed contempt for the individual on the spot in that moment. It's a system that has so little room for error because it is built on a series of individual moments all coming together instead of a well built system that just steamrolls any obstacles in its way.

When we fail to perform to expectations there are so many obvious culprits, and expectations are high. This is a side that through individual and collective talent plus this gameplan can beat anybody, and have done as such in big games. But when you are capable of so much it means anything short of that stands out massively. It's the hope that kills you. The Rocket era side you could trust would perform but only up to a certain level, they could never hit that truly elite level. This side can beat anybody in any game, but you can't trust them to always turn up and certainly not do it at half pace.

I guess this team is hard to love not because of who they are as individuals but because they are capable of being so good, and when they aren't the reasons for the downfall seem so easily fixable, as they are all individual moments or points of failure, where it's easy to get frustrated at the players in question for failing as the system is built to require them all to always succeed.