Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

[LostDoggy]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

This season still seems not real to me.
Im super happy with the start, though i dont think we are as good as 6-1-0.
I think we have been a little lucky with the first 6 games in melbourne.
Although the win over Sydney did give me alot more confidence.

Im already personally expecting the bulldogs to win which i think is not a good mind set to get into this early, as if we/when we do lose ill be pissed off and write us off right away.

Fremantle next round, better win :P
Cooney/Griffen better not get hurt in V vs DTeam.

[Twodogs]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

I think we are good. An unbeaten start to the season is fantastic.

BUT - I don't think we are quite as good as the Hawks or the Cats. I think they are still the yardsticks this season so for us to win a flag we need to be better than them.

Again I see that bottle as half full.


I reckon neither Hawthorn or Geelong hold as many terrors for us as say a Sydney or an Adelaide in a final. If there have to be dominant teams ity might as well be ones we have a good recent record against.

[Bumper Bulldogs]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Hall always gives us trouble, Lake has certainly improved, but Hall is an extremely important player for Sydney. Yes West was missing and he is still a good player, but less important than he was a couple of years ago.



Don't make me laugh.

Come on Mantis, when we had these guys running around side hated playing us as they knew they where in for a bugger of a day.

I know the game has changed but you cant tell me that the hairs on your neck didn't rise when they targeted a player (eg; a young ben cousins) before the ball was bounced.

[Bumper Bulldogs]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Again I see that bottle as half full.


I reckon neither Hawthorn or Geelong hold as many terrors for us as say a Sydney or an Adelaide in a final. If there have to be dominant teams ity might as well be ones we have a good recent record against.

Believing is everything and we have ample of that at this time. I think that we have matched up with the cats and hawks better than swans and crows of late.

[bold-dogg]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

I thought Sydney threw everything at us, and they are contenders. Dogs were committed, hard, ran straight at them, and some deity guided the ball through the sticks.
We copped Richmond and Essendon as good as they'll play all year, beat St Kilda fair and square.
The luck of the good early draw (and good pre-season) helps us ease into the season, get the game plan up, and confidence right.
It looks like even ye gods are smiling.
How good is Cooney?

[GVGjr]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

I thought Sydney threw everything at us, and they are contenders. Dogs were committed, hard, ran straight at them, and some deity guided the ball through the sticks.
We copped Richmond and Essendon as good as they'll play all year, beat St Kilda fair and square.
The luck of the good early draw (and good pre-season) helps us ease into the season, get the game plan up, and confidence right.
It looks like even ye gods are smiling.
How good is Cooney?

It was our best result even considering the comeback against the Saints

[1eyedog]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

We just have to find a way to beat Franklin and Roughead and we're right up there.

Lake and Williams

[LostDoggy]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

We are a far better team than the Hawks. They are much flashier, with their shiny, fashionable forward line, but our midfield more than matches theirs, our forwardline actually has a far better scoring and conversion rate, and the depth of our team is quite telling -- Hawthorn have already played three rookies this year and are stretched thin, Dogs have four second/third year players coming back from injury that are no shoo-in for the side, who would be a walk-up start any other season and in most other teams.

I do think the lid has to be kept on, if only for a more steady, even development morale-wise, but the lid coming off Hawthorn is just ridiculous -- they have NOT proven a single thing yet. Beating Collingwood is no great feat. This Dogs team already did it comprehensively in a FINAL two years ago and it was merely a step in our long-term development.

I seriously don't think the Hawks will make the top 4 this year. There will be a significant fall-off for a lot of their younger players, and injuries will test their depth.. 22 weeks is a long time, and two middling/trigger-happy forwards does not a team make.

[The Underdog]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

This win certainly felt significant. Although it is only a home and away win, it seemed to signify a coming of age. We are well on our way to being a top 4 side. We still have some deficiencies, but our midfield and forward line are pretty damn good.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

We are a far better team than the Hawks. They are much flashier, with their shiny, fashionable forward line, but our midfield more than matches theirs, our forwardline actually has a far better scoring and conversion rate, and the depth of our team is quite telling -- Hawthorn have already played three rookies this year and are stretched thin, Dogs have four second/third year players coming back from injury that are no shoo-in for the side, who would be a walk-up start any other season and in most other teams.

I do think the lid has to be kept on, if only for a more steady, even development morale-wise, but the lid coming off Hawthorn is just ridiculous -- they have NOT proven a single thing yet. Beating Collingwood is no great feat. This Dogs team already did it comprehensively in a FINAL two years ago and it was merely a step in our long-term development.

I seriously don't think the Hawks will make the top 4 this year. There will be a significant fall-off for a lot of their younger players, and injuries will test their depth.. 22 weeks is a long time, and two middling/trigger-happy forwards does not a team make.

I think that you are right and that is why I am looking forward to round 10, we will finnaly have a chance to peove that we may just be contenders.

[westdog54]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

We are a far better team than the Hawks. They are much flashier, with their shiny, fashionable forward line, but our midfield more than matches theirs, our forwardline actually has a far better scoring and conversion rate, and the depth of our team is quite telling -- Hawthorn have already played three rookies this year and are stretched thin, Dogs have four second/third year players coming back from injury that are no shoo-in for the side, who would be a walk-up start any other season and in most other teams.

I do think the lid has to be kept on, if only for a more steady, even development morale-wise, but the lid coming off Hawthorn is just ridiculous -- they have NOT proven a single thing yet. Beating Collingwood is no great feat. This Dogs team already did it comprehensively in a FINAL two years ago and it was merely a step in our long-term development.

I seriously don't think the Hawks will make the top 4 this year. There will be a significant fall-off for a lot of their younger players, and injuries will test their depth.. 22 weeks is a long time, and two middling/trigger-happy forwards does not a team make.

I think that my dad summed Hawthorn up well. They're only 1 injury away from being just another ordinary team. You get 3 guesses at which injury we're referring to.

[Bornadog]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Just because we had a slip-up against Richmond and dropped the 2 points. .

Still fuming over that one. Should have put them away in the first quarter when we kicked 4.10.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

If any side suffers a couple of injuries to key players, it'll effect the entire side - whether it be us, Geelong, Hawthorn or any other team.

Give credit where its due; the Hawks look super impressive. I'd argue their depth is probably better than ours, especially up forward & in the midfield. Mitchell, Hodge, Lewis, Sewell & Crawford are all very good midfielders that have a combination of strength/aggression & skill. Osborne, Ladson & a couple of their other players provide good back-up too. Tuck hasn't cracked too many games, but he's waiting in the wings too.

Their forward half is pretty hard to stop. Franklin is - at the moment - the best player in the competition and next to impossible to match-up on. Averaging 9 shots on goal a game, that's amazing. Roughead has been really good for the Hawks this year too, he's kicked bags of goals in the last two weeks when Franklin wasn't dominating. He's got a strong pair of hands and busts packs. The combination of these two is far superior to any other FF/CHF combination in the league at the moment. That's saying something. Bradshaw/Brown, Kozzi/Riewoldt aren't bad. It doesn't end there though, because they've got Williams & Rioli who have improved the setup considerably. Both capable crumbers & apply defensive pressure, both intelligent & know where to position themselves, both kick goals & Williams is about as accurate as they come.

Thorp's a young gun that can't get a game in that forward line ATM. More than likely, he'd get one in ours.

They aren't 'unbeatable' because their back half is suspect and the true test will come when they play against us, Geelong, Port Adelaide & Sydney. However, their midfield & forward line is very dangerous and generally, it's pretty difficult to stop all of them from having a big influence on a match.

Geelong is the interesting one; they've shown some signs of weakness in the past few weeks. Sydney had their measure for three quarters, as did Brisbane, and they were lucky to escape with a victory against Fremantle. IMO it's closer than the media tends to think. Seem to either be backing Geelong or Hawthorn all the way, but along with us & Sydney, there's weaknesses to be exploited and I reckon it's just going to come down to 'on the day'.

[Twodogs]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Give credit where its due; the Hawks look super impressive. I'd argue their depth is probably better than ours, especially up forward & in the midfield. Mitchell, Hodge, Lewis, Sewell & Crawford are all very good midfielders that have a combination of strength/aggression & skill. Osborne, Ladson & a couple of their other players provide good back-up too. Tuck hasn't cracked too many games, but he's waiting in the wings too.

While they are all the things you say, tough, aggressive and skilful, they are also one paced. I reckon our plan would be to run them off their feet and then close them down when the game turns in their favour. Same thing we did to Sydney. In fact, in terms of leg speed and age there isnt a lot of difference between Sydney's onballers and Hawthorns. Maybe the Hawks have the Swannies shaded in terms of skills by hand and foot but that's not much good to them if their opponents are 20 metres away with the ball under their arm.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

If any side suffers a couple of injuries to key players, it'll effect the entire side - whether it be us, Geelong, Hawthorn or any other team.

Give credit where its due; the Hawks look super impressive. I'd argue their depth is probably better than ours, especially up forward & in the midfield. Mitchell, Hodge, Lewis, Sewell & Crawford are all very good midfielders that have a combination of strength/aggression & skill. Osborne, Ladson & a couple of their other players provide good back-up too. Tuck hasn't cracked too many games, but he's waiting in the wings too.

Their forward half is pretty hard to stop. Franklin is - at the moment - the best player in the competition and next to impossible to match-up on. Averaging 9 shots on goal a game, that's amazing. Roughead has been really good for the Hawks this year too, he's kicked bags of goals in the last two weeks when Franklin wasn't dominating. He's got a strong pair of hands and busts packs. The combination of these two is far superior to any other FF/CHF combination in the league at the moment. That's saying something. Bradshaw/Brown, Kozzi/Riewoldt aren't bad. It doesn't end there though, because they've got Williams & Rioli who have improved the setup considerably. Both capable crumbers & apply defensive pressure, both intelligent & know where to position themselves, both kick goals & Williams is about as accurate as they come.

Thorp's a young gun that can't get a game in that forward line ATM. More than likely, he'd get one in ours.

They aren't 'unbeatable' because their back half is suspect and the true test will come when they play against us, Geelong, Port Adelaide & Sydney. However, their midfield & forward line is very dangerous and generally, it's pretty difficult to stop all of them from having a big influence on a match.

Geelong is the interesting one; they've shown some signs of weakness in the past few weeks. Sydney had their measure for three quarters, as did Brisbane, and they were lucky to escape with a victory against Fremantle. IMO it's closer than the media tends to think. Seem to either be backing Geelong or Hawthorn all the way, but along with us & Sydney, there's weaknesses to be exploited and I reckon it's just going to come down to 'on the day'.

No doubt they LOOK pretty impressive, but this league flatters to deceive. Plenty of teams look impressive (Adelaide 2006, Saints here and there, even Melbourne 2005/2006) when they are in form and winning, but that's a mile away from actually being genuine up-and-at-em contenders.

Their game plan is built around a clogged corridor and a flashy, inefficient forwardline (I will maintain it's more flash than substance still, even though I really rate Williams and Roughie, and Rioli's tackling is impressive). That Clarkson is from the Mark William's (the coach) school of coaching tells me that their style is more suited to home/away games than cut-throat finals.

Of course injuries will affect any side -- that's the nature of injuries -- but this is a side that will lose half its aura just by the injury of ONE person. That's not depth. (although, I will argue that Luke Hodge's injury is pretty significant. He is the other player they are least able to cover the absence of. Without him the midfield becomes just an honest, skillful one rather than a game-breaking one).

ps. averaging 9 shots a game on goal but kicking bags of behinds is very impressive, but not very effective. He will not get 9 shots on goal in many finals. Mark Williams (the forward) will kick 7 goals if he gets 9 shots on goal. Heck, if Mitch Hahn went ahead and blazed away everytime he got the ball in the forwardline he would kick 5 behinds a match.