2008 in Review

[LostDoggy]

The Good:

Making the Preliminary Final.

The first half of the season.

Beating St. Kilda twice and Sydney 3 times - one of those wins at the SCG!

The continued improvements of Ryan Griffen, Dylan Addison, Big Willy Minson and the debut of Callan Ward and Tim Callan proving he's a great pick up from Geelong.

The pleasure of watching Jason Akermanis kicking goals from the boundary line.

Matty Boyd representing his country, All Australian selections for The Glove Dale Morris and Adam Cooney.

Adam Cooney rewarded with a Brownlow Medal - IN YOUR FACE ABLETT!

Tom Williams looking like a damn good player - while he was on the field.

The promise and expectation that the dogs WILL win a Premiership in my lifetime.

Break out season for Josh Hill and Jarrod Harbrow.

First team to beat Hawthorn.

Great Winning Streak to start the season.

Farren Ray skipping the kennel (which means, Eagleton will be the sole scape goat for the dogs).


The Bad:

Second half of the season.

Adrejis Everitt, second year blues.

Heartbreaking loss against the Kangaroos (and the amount of abuse Brad Johnson received for missing the goal).

Tom Williams injured again.

Dylan Addison injured second half of season and Shaun Higgins injured first half of the season.

Jarrod Grant not being able to get on the field.


The Ugly:

THE loss against Hawthorn - Tom Williams sorely missed.

The Prelim defeat against Geelong - that WAS a free kick to Johnno and turned the game.

No "ready made" KPP picked up in the off season trades.

Scotty West - the man who epitomised what the dogs are about, could not go out on his own terms.


The Future:

Tom Williams is crucial to the future and development of Jarryd Grant as a KPP prospect for the dogs medium sized forward line.

Expectations that Ryan Griffen will be able to play 4 quarters of football, instead of being a "burst" player.

Shaun Higgins to have a full pre season behind him and to show the AFL world "I AM Shaun Higgins".

[GVGjr]

Re: 2008 in Review

The Bad:

Second half of the season.

Adrejis Everitt, second year blues.

Heartbreaking loss against the Kangaroos (and the amount of abuse Brad Johnson received for missing the goal).

Tom Williams injured again.

Dylan Addison injured second half of season and Shaun Higgins injured first half of the season.

Jarrod Grant not being able to get on the field.

This pretty much sums up what needs to work for us in 2009.
Two years in a row we dropped form in the 2nd half of the season and hopefully Bill Davoren and his team can rectify this from a fitness perspective.

A lot of the improvement we hope to gain will focus on the output we can get from Everitt, Williams, Addison and Higgins.

Nice read Dex

[mighty_west]

Re: 2008 in Review

Good work Dex, see, you can talk footy in the off season!!!!

[LostDoggy]

Re: 2008 in Review

T
The Ugly:

THE loss against Hawthorn - Tom Williams sorely missed.

The Prelim defeat against Geelong - that WAS a free kick to Johnno and turned the game.

No "ready made" KPP picked up in the off season trades.

Scotty West - the man who eptimosed what the dogs are about, could not go out on his own terms.


The Future:

Tom Williams is crucial to the future and development of Jarryd Grant as a KPP prospect for the dogs medium sized forward line.

Expectations that Ryan Griffen will be able to play 4 quarters of football, instead of being a "burst" player.

Shaun Higgins to have a full pre season behind him and to show the AFL world "I AM Shaun Higgins".

The club should hang their heads in shame for the way the West dismissal was handled and it was very much on of the low points of the season.

We have so many good young players coming through and if Griffen, Williams and Higgins can step up in 2009 as 4 quarter footballers we will be well on our way to exceeding our efforts in 2008.

The real question mark is how will we structure the forward line and what talls would play there? The jusy is still out on the Minson experiment.

[Dogs 24/7]

Re: 2008 in Review

DexterT, thanks for going to such an effort to write this up. If you had to mark us out of 10 how would you rate our efforts?
I don't think we "stuck the landing" so I would give the 2008 season a 7.9

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: 2008 in Review

The club should hang their heads in shame for the way the West dismissal was handled and it was very much on of the low points of the season.

That didn't come out in the best light but it wasn't really the club's fault.

[LostDoggy]

Re: 2008 in Review

That didn't come out in the best light but it wasn't really the club's fault.

I won't take this off topic any further but despite what you might have been told it is the clubs fault the way this was handled. The club gave him an ultimatum and little to no time to accept it.

[LostDoggy]

Re: 2008 in Review

DexterT, thanks for going to such an effort to write this up. If you had to mark us out of 10 how would you rate our efforts?
I don't think we "stuck the landing" so I would give the 2008 season a 7.9

A bit harsh, I'd put it at 8.5. The dogs DID make it to the final four and the only team the dogs did not beat in that top 4 was Geelong and the dogs came pretty damn close in the Prelim.

The losses to the Kangas and Carlton, the draw against the Tiges and the Hawthorn and Geelong massacres certainly took the polish off the year. However you've got to look at the overall performance of a team which relied on a P/T KPP to create contests in the forward 50 and an undersized backline (when Tom Williams wasn't playing). A backline that ran all day and created many "fast breaks" for the forwards to have the opportunity to have space to run into.

You've got to keep in mind too, Brad Johnson was injured for the majority of the season BUT he still was the dogs leading goal kicker. I say watch out for the Smiling Assasin in 2009, he'll want to prove alot of people wrong.

[ledge]

Re: 2008 in Review

Was there an ultimatum i thought it was just sorry mate your finished and i must admit after seeing him run (hobble) around at Willy i tend to agree he was finished.
And i think after a couple of sleeps Westy knew deep down too.
Not many players retire on their terms, what i think made it hard was Westy was pretty injury free through his whole career and this major one came along at the wrong time.
Griffen, Boyd, Cross,Cooney etc proved they were ready to take over, we ended up 3rd without West and also Eade did mention at the start of the year it was time for the kids to take over and West to play more off the bench.
In hindsight the writing was on the wall when our younger players took us to third.
Was it handled bad like the media made it out or was it just the emotion West would have shown whenever he was told?

[ledge]

Re: 2008 in Review

If your going to compare with the year before i would say we were a 9, i dont think many expected this much improvement except us Bulldog supporters who expect this every year!
Does anyone know where we were tipped to finish by the scribes?
I bet it wasnt 3rd.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: 2008 in Review

I won't take this off topic any further but despite what you might have been told it is the clubs fault the way this was handled. The club gave him an ultimatum and little to no time to accept it.

The club did say to Westy that it was time. His knee was rooted and he wouldn't accept it. This is pretty common amoungst footballers who will give anything to prolong their careers. Robert Harvey and Scott Burns both wanted to play on next year as well.

Eade had a meeting with West where the told him it was over. During the meeting West started to tear up and asked to leave the room to compose himself - he did not storm out as was reported in the media. While West was out of the room he texted family and a few friends about what had happened. It was one of these people who went to the media while West and the club were discussing how Westy wanted to handle the announcement.

[The Coon Dog]

Re: 2008 in Review

The club did say to Westy that it was time. His knee was rooted and he wouldn't accept it. This is pretty common amoungst footballers who will give anything to prolong their careers. Robert Harvey and Scott Burns both wanted to play on next year as well.

Eade had a meeting with West where the told him it was over. During the meeting West started to tear up and asked to leave the room to compose himself - he did not storm out as was reported in the media. While West was out of the room he texted family and a few friends about what had happened. It was one of these people who went to the media while West and the club were discussing how Westy wanted to handle the announcement.

I heard this exactly the same too SS.

[Twodogs]

Re: 2008 in Review

I heard this exactly the same too SS.

That's exactly how I heard it as well.





Great thread Dexter.

[Mantis]

Re: 2008 in Review

The Ugly:

THE loss against Hawthorn - Tom Williams sorely missed.

The Prelim defeat against Geelong - that WAS a free kick to Johnno and turned the game.

No "ready made" KPP picked up in the off season trades.

1. Tom Williams wouldn't have really helped that night. Our midfield was the problem.

2. The game was already gone when the Johnson incident occured. We had had our opportunities and didn't make the most of them.

3. There were no ready made KPP available at the price we were willing to pay.

[alwaysadog]

Re: 2008 in Review

I don’t know how you’d score a season, but let’s assume 10 is a premiership, so that’s not possible.

We established ourselves as one of the very top teams without ever really being a Premiership contender, so it’s pretty hard to argue for a less than 8 result.

We played without a proper CHF all season and a quality CHB most of the time. So structurally we can’t get 9 if that is a consideration on the other hand to have done so well without those KPPS may add to the score.

Performance wise we exceeded all expectations after the very ordinary previous season and were in uncharted waters after round 15.

We began like champions but wobbled very badly in the run to the line. Tiredness took its toll and injuries occurred, then we had to keep using players who were injured and this did not work and only sapped confidence and energy. Exactly what one would expect for a side with limited or no depth, that is why Eade is so keen for the next bunch to stand up.

No season is perfect; there were times during 2008 when the Hawks looked pretty ordinary in particular in a game against us. Their supporters would if they’re honest, have to admit things looked pretty gloomy at that point. But honesty in football is a rather scary quality and I have to ask is that possible for a club run by Kennett.

Sound of wrist being slapped and voice saying, “Stop it AAD.”
“Sorry but I just can’t help myself, the memories are so horrific, the nightmares so awful. I promise… I’ll try to behave.”

Meanwhile back at the thread…. rather than focus on the latter part of the season and the maybe/maybe not prelim final game against Geelong, I‘d look at where we came from, what we had and what we did.

Yes we got close, but we were never going to do more than that. So I score us 10 for effort, 8 ½ for structure and 8 ½ for persistence. An average score of 9, which I think reflects our top 3 finish.