Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

[GVGjr]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Best news since the WO redevelopment.

This would be incredible if we get games played at WO, too.

Agree totally the best news this year. Can't wait to watch games back at the Whitten oval.

[Remi Moses]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Has to be an improvement on player development.
Totally untenable when you have an affiliate's objective is to win games ( fair enough)and the. Clubs is to win games.The financial aspect is a question that needs to be answered.

[GVGjr]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

I agree that this would be part of their thinking - twelve months now to try to offset as much of the financial cost as possible and to build the financial plan to ensure we can sustain a VFL team into the future.

I have a feeling the AFL have come to terms they made a mistake getting rid of the 2nd's comp and will have to help fund the new teams Richmond are going alone too. If they want a even comp they need to give all teams the same tools to get the job done.

[Remi Moses]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Can't see how it's not a positive?
Obviously the cost is a question that needs to be addressed.
Williamstown's objective is to win football games( fair enough) and our objective is to develop our players and experiment with positions and game styles.

[Nuggety Back Pocket]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

I'm not yet convinced this is great news for the club. It's terrifically symbolic but will it really be that much an improvement on what we already had in place?

This is a significant cost and I will be interested to hear how they will cover it.
Coaches, top up players and an upgrade to the WO to make it VFL ready is just some of challenges that need to be met.

If we can't fund things like enough GPS vests now then our finances will be stretched that much further in 2014.

I get why so many see it as a positive but we need to be sure that they club can get this right and have an understanding that just putting the younger VFL guys into a red, white and blue playing jumper won't necessarily make it a success. There is a lot more to it than that.

Personally I would prefer that we don't play home games at the WO and I would recommend that we don't call the VFL side Footscray.

This was a hasty decision and totally unnecessary. For a club like the WB that continues to carry a heavy debt burden it would seem illogical to commit to an additional $400,000 projected to field a stand alone VFL side.My understanding is that Williamstown was unhappy with this year's cooperation from the WB and had made it's own decision to have it's own stand alone club in 2014. We would be better off becoming more competitive financially to build up our playing stock given the poor quality of the current playing list.

[jeemak]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

We get some protection there though - and the old dears at the tuck shop in Willy used to always run out of rolls at 1/4 time as they'd tell me.

Clearly the concept of "making more" never entered their consideration.

I'd just be happy to see football at WO again. It may drag out some of the old fans who don't like the new iteration of AFL football to watch the occasional game.

I'll probably drag my father down for a few games, for sure.


Great move for the club. I can't see it detracting from our senior team attendances though, as it's likely our twos will be pretty ordinary as well meanign we'll have two unwatchable teams!

[angelopetraglia]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Great news, best way to grow your own talent.

[Bornadog]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

I'm not yet convinced this is great news for the club. It's terrifically symbolic but will it really be that much an improvement on what we already had in place?

This is a significant cost and I will be interested to hear how they will cover it.
Coaches, top up players and an upgrade to the WO to make it VFL ready is just some of challenges that need to be met.

If we can't fund things like enough GPS vests now then our finances will be stretched that much further in 2014.

I get why so many see it as a positive but we need to be sure that they club can get this right and have an understanding that just putting the younger VFL guys into a red, white and blue playing jumper won't necessarily make it a success. There is a lot more to it than that.

Personally I would prefer that we don't play home games at the WO and I would recommend that we don't call the VFL side Footscray.

Forgetting the financial aspect, don't you agree this will suit the development of our young players more than the current arrangement.

[jeemak]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

I'm not yet convinced this is great news for the club. It's terrifically symbolic but will it really be that much an improvement on what we already had in place?

This is a significant cost and I will be interested to hear how they will cover it.
Coaches, top up players and an upgrade to the WO to make it VFL ready is just some of challenges that need to be met.

If we can't fund things like enough GPS vests now then our finances will be stretched that much further in 2014.

I get why so many see it as a positive but we need to be sure that they club can get this right and have an understanding that just putting the younger VFL guys into a red, white and blue playing jumper won't necessarily make it a success. There is a lot more to it than that.

Personally I would prefer that we don't play home games at the WO and I would recommend that we don't call the VFL side Footscray.

I haven't done the research, so take the following with a grain of salt of course. But, wouldn't we already contrbute a significant amount towards making Williamstown viable as a combined club? Surely a large amount of Bulldogs resources would contribute to running the affiliation.

Considering the 16 listed players, plus the rookies who don't make the weekly senior team and already train with the club on certain days throughout the week you would have to assume that our club is predominantly run on a fixed cost basis throughout the week. Apart from game day resources, from an operational perspective there's not gonig to be a great impact on the club going alone.

If we pull the resources we put in to the affiliation, and channel them towards our stand alone team then I'm not sure the gap to keep our stand alone team is going to be as large as we might think. I can't imagine our board deciding to do it if it was.

[GVGjr]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Forgetting the financial aspect, don't you agree this will suit the development of our young players more than the current arrangement.

I don't buy this notion that players couldn't be developed correctly within the current arrangement.
We got to 3 Preliminary Finals with the current arrangement and I don't for one second think we didn't go further because of not fielding our own VFL side.

Having young players competing for spots should be seen as a positive not a negative.

We have a very limited budget and I'm not convinced having control of the VFL is the wisest way of spending our money.

[GVGjr]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

I haven't done the research, so take the following with a grain of salt of course. But, wouldn't we already contrbute a significant amount towards making Williamstown viable as a combined club? Surely a large amount of Bulldogs resources would contribute to running the affiliation.

Williamstown consistently stumped up money to help us fund rookies and it's doubtful that Picken would be with us if they didn't.

Yes we contribute to running costs of Williamstown but I think the $500,000 extra a season that has been quoted to run our own VFL side is actually on the low side.

If we pull the resources we put in to the affiliation, and channel them towards our stand alone team then I'm not sure the gap to keep our stand alone team is going to be as large as we might think. I can't imagine our board deciding to do it if it was.

I'm not sure the decision was ours to make after our conduct this season.

We still have some of our resources trying to finish the Edgewater project that is already well over time and budget and I'm not confident this is not another significant project that the club will struggle to deliver on.

[jeemak]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Williamstown consistently stumped up money to help us fund rookies and it's doubtful that Picken would be with us if they didn't.

Yes we contribute to running costs of Williamstown but I think the $500,000 extra a season that has been quoted to run our own VFL side is actually on the low side.

I'm not sure the decision was ours to make after our conduct this season.

We still have some of our resources trying to finish the Edgewater project that is already well over time and budget and I'm not confident this is not another significant project that the club will struggle to deliver on.

Understand that Picken was funded by Williamstown initially, though I wasn't aware of any others after that. Happy to be proven wrong.

Do you think the board had its hand forced in to making this decision? Appreciate the relationship with Williamstown was deteriorating, but did the club attempt to align itself with another club, or have all of the other VFL clubs had enough of us, and other AFL clubs?

[GVGjr]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Understand that Picken was funded by Williamstown initially, though I wasn't aware of any others after that. Happy to be proven wrong.

Patrick Rose was another

Do you think the board had its hand forced in to making this decision? Appreciate the relationship with Williamstown was deteriorating, but did the club attempt to align itself with another club, or have all of the other VFL clubs had enough of us, and other AFL clubs?

I'm not sure but I can't see how we could have aligned ourselves with another club. Until this year and on face value at least the relationship was working.

[Hotdog60]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Do you think that Macca was after this when he arrived and he has been working he's way to get this to happen.

[azabob]

Re: Stand Alone Bulldogs VFL Team in 2014

Do you think that Macca was after this when he arrived and he has been working he's way to get this to happen.

Yes. He didn't worry too much about the relationship, he did what was best for the bulldogs and our players.