Grant Thomas Article

[Picken Knows]

Grants thoughts before last weeks game.

Surely the Western Bulldogs will provide some semblance of honour and integrity - courage and aggression. They have been completely disappointing and are in the victim phase looking for excuses with injury etc. The facts are their coach Rodney Eade has never truly immersed himself into player empowerment and leadership and is reluctant to lose control. The end result is a flimsy leadership group who cannot handle an outspoken veteran and in turn are having guilty consciences about the way they undermined and terminated him.

Whilst the Bulldogs have Hahn and Eagleton in their team at the expense of youth they will not amount to much. Hahn has been a terrific servant of the club but hiding him in defence is not the answer - the game has passed him by and unfortunately he has also lost his hunger for the contest. Eagleton has also been a terrific player over a long period of time but the writing was on the wall last year when the senior player wooed him back to the kennel. Both have robbed young players like Everitt, Hill and Ward (to name a few) of precious experience and valuable game time.

Johnson, Murphy and Giansiracusa are the drivers of the team and are all selective with their efforts and do not instill a code of standards amongst their leader-starved group. Their body language is poor under adversity and they are seemingly susceptible to pressure situations - not a good look when you are the leaders.

http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/blog.aspx...wcomments=true

[Remi Moses]

Agree with some of his sentiments about our leaders.I would think though Eade has embraced the whole player empowerment stuff.
Thomas has a bee in his bonnet with Eade,it comes from the flood fest in 02 where they blamed each other!
I guess Thomas's legacy will be that he had arguably the best list handed tohim andhe failed to even gain a GF Birth.
Abject failure except at Saints Disco where him and his mates showed their leadership qualities

[Scraggers]

T = Tool
H = Has-been
O = Obnoxious
M = Menial
A = Anomalous
S = Sel-Indulgent

[Mantis]

Whaackidy Whack Whack Whack.

While a little portion has merit he loses any credibility when he says that Ward hasn't had opportunities when in fact he has played when fit (perhaps even when he hasn't been)....and it isn't like Hill & Everitt haven't played at all.

[Ghost Dog]

It's interesting that those who seem to have it in for the dogs keep dragging up the Aker thing.
IF anything, it galvanized us for a few weeks. He doesn't mention the success of Barry, Harbrow, Boydie or highlights of the season.
Gotta be in it to win it Grant. And we are still in it.
Go dogs!

[Curly5]

He's no doubt a friend of Akrimonious. Did he take a stance on that issue at all?

[MrMahatma]

He hates the doggies. Really doesn't rate us at all. How can you blame our leadership about the Aker scenario when a leadership team boasting Brown, Voss, Scott brothers et al had the same result.

[LostDoggy]

Thomas is a fat slug man. I stopped listening to the useless, biased and irrelevant crap that comes out of his mouth long ago.

[comrade]

So will he come out this week and give credit where it's due?

[Mitcha]

Just another reason to knock off his beloved Saints this week, be an interesting Footy Classified next week if it happened. This flog for some reason hates us with a passion, would love to find out why.

[AndrewP6]

Whilst he hits hard, and swings somewhat indiscriminately, Thommo does have some valid points. A number of WOOFers have commented on the 'finger pointers' on our team, and the inability/unwillingness of our leaders to stand up when needed. His comments on Eagle and Mitch are also echoed frequently - although the bit about robbing Ward of chances was dumb. I think he's also off the mark about a lack of player empowerment - that was a driving force behind Aker's termination.

Will tune in to hear him retract some of these statements tonight... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[LostDoggy]

One thing i have agreed with him over time, is the mental strength within the playing group.

They showed a lot of it against Sydney to get over the line, but in a big game like this week, i will be interested to see how the guys handle it.