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Re: Terry Wallace says - Current team Weakest since 1996 team.
There's a couple of possible reasons. Maybe Swallow and Goldstein didn't want to go to GWS in the first place, irrespective of the cash on offer. Perhaps the Kangaroos didn't have guys like Cooney, Gia, Higgins, Boyd, Cross, Lake, Morris, Hargrave and Murphy soaking up as much of the salary cap as their players, after all, the respective lists of the two clubs were in considerably different phases. When the first round of talks were in place with Ward we were still considered by many pundits a very good chance to reach the top four, and potentially make the GF. Obiviously the football department at that stage were as silly as the pundits in their thinking, and they should have understood that irrespective of the list's health and injuries at the back end of 2010 action needed to be taken, though there's only so much you can do with limited salary cap space.
Throughout that time maybe Ward had it in his head that he was worth more than he was offered first time around, who knows how much he actually thought he was worth from the beginning. His father brought him up thinking that the Bulldogs were a battler club, never to succeed, and he barracked for Essendon. Maybe he fell in love with the romance of playing for Sheedy, a coach he and his father idolised throughout his childhood.*
Harbrow, as good as he was, was never going to be in the top bracket of earners at our club for at least two or three years after GC entering the league. Sure he had potential, though our list is heavily loaded at the top age and without dumping some of those guys he was always going to have to wait his turn.
Circumstances hurt us because we were either at our peak, or on the way down without actually realising it. I can blame the football department for overestimating the potential of our playing group, because the results are there for all to see, but I can't blame the club for miss-handling Ward and Harbrow because I don't have the evidence to suggest that was the case.
*This point is hyperbole at its best. Just thought I'd put it in there anyway, for laughs if nothing else.
There's a couple of possible reasons. Maybe Swallow and Goldstein didn't want to go to GWS in the first place, irrespective of the cash on offer. Perhaps the Kangaroos didn't have guys like Cooney, Gia, Higgins, Boyd, Cross, Lake, Morris, Hargrave and Murphy soaking up as much of the salary cap as their players, after all, the respective lists of the two clubs were in considerably different phases. When the first round of talks were in place with Ward we were still considered by many pundits a very good chance to reach the top four, and potentially make the GF. Obiviously the football department at that stage were as silly as the pundits in their thinking, and they should have understood that irrespective of the list's health and injuries at the back end of 2010 action needed to be taken, though there's only so much you can do with limited salary cap space.
Throughout that time maybe Ward had it in his head that he was worth more than he was offered first time around, who knows how much he actually thought he was worth from the beginning. His father brought him up thinking that the Bulldogs were a battler club, never to succeed, and he barracked for Essendon. Maybe he fell in love with the romance of playing for Sheedy, a coach he and his father idolised throughout his childhood.*
Harbrow, as good as he was, was never going to be in the top bracket of earners at our club for at least two or three years after GC entering the league. Sure he had potential, though our list is heavily loaded at the top age and without dumping some of those guys he was always going to have to wait his turn.
Circumstances hurt us because we were either at our peak, or on the way down without actually realising it. I can blame the football department for overestimating the potential of our playing group, because the results are there for all to see, but I can't blame the club for miss-handling Ward and Harbrow because I don't have the evidence to suggest that was the case.
*This point is hyperbole at its best. Just thought I'd put it in there anyway, for laughs if nothing else.
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