A tale of two rebuilds
Following on from an opening round brimming with up-tempo football, the Western Bulldogs’ clash against St Kilda this Saturday night also provides us with a salutary and fascinating lesson in the way that the paths of two remarkably similar clubs can diverge so dramatically in the space of a few seasons.
In the past the Saints and Dogs always travelled more or less parallel roads; both having won only a single premiership and half a century ago; both financially wracked to the verge of extinction at some point or another; both forced to concede that their spiritual home was no longer fit for purpose (though neither was what you’d call a fortress – the surroundings just didn’t rouse the opposition to great heights. “Give me a grey day at the Western Oval,” said Brent Croswell, “and I wasn’t worth a cracker”); both finding solace in the brilliance of individuals, producing swags of Brownlows, Colemans and cult heroes but not flags; slaves to loyalty and hard-bitten passion in the absence of excellence or true professionalism.
Two other clubs united in such bleak history might develop between them an enmity and intense rivalry yet for both, far greater turmoil and ill-feeling has tended to come by simply looking in the mirror.
But football in the equalised, nationalised and ground rationalised era is a different beast. In theory, everyone should get their turn at the top when the roundabout circles. Back in the 2009, St Kilda finished minor premiers and the Dogs third on the way to a preliminary final match-up and Rodney Eade’s side did everything bar win. The next year the two clubs were third and fourth and the prelim rematch was won a little more comfortably by the Saints. Thereafter two ageing lists reached the end of the road; sixth and 10th in 2011, ninth and 15th in 2012, 16th and 15th in 2013, 18th and 14th in 2014.
Now the Bulldogs are surging again, riding the wave of Luke Beveridge’s rejuvenation and boasting an impressive crop of young stars. But how did that disparity between two sides facing such similar dilemmas widened so quickly and significantly? After all, both either disposed of or lost senior players when their premiership window closed and both moved on from the reigns of iconic modern coaches with significant misfires via their next appointments, having done what all ambitious off-Broadway clubs now do and hired an assistant to the best.
For the Saints that was Malthouse-tutored Scott Watters, gone after two seasons. The Dogs went for Mark Thompson’s assistant Brendan McCartney, who seemed more like a kindly welfare officer and lasted a year longer without notable success. The Dogs had cut their losses early but not entirely detoured. In came Alastair Clarkson’s right-hand man Luke Beveridge. St Kilda went with understated and respected Alan Richardson, a nearly-man for so many other jobs.
Both clubs bottomed out after 2010 and not ideally so given the compromised drafts that were to come. But the Dogs got to work developing what they had and got inventive with what they didn’t, doing far better than the Saints in drafts between 2010 and 2013.
In 2011 there was the low-key acquisition of long-ignored VFL star Tory Dickson with pick 57. A year later they offloaded high-profile, highly-paid defender Brian Lake and banked picks 21 and 43, sending the latter to West Coast in return for Koby Stevens and then adding future stars Jake Stringer and Jackson Macrae in the first round of the draft, as they would do with Marcus Bontempelli. Good genes helped, it must be said; 2010 father-son picks Mitch Wallis (22) and Tom Liberatore (41) were steals. Trades high profile and not netted them forwards Stewart Crameri and Tom Boyd.
And where the Bulldogs made huge strides while others like St Kilda failed was in their identification and development of rookie draftees – the kind of low-cost, depth-bolstering acquisitions that can make the difference between being also-rans and challengers. This is how the Dogs brought Luke Dahlhaus and Jason Johannisen into the fold and both now star. Lin Jong, Tom Campbell and Jack Redpath have weaved the exact same path into the senior side. As harsh as it might be to probe this category so starkly, Maverick Weller is about all St Kilda has to show for its forays into the rookie market in the same time. Eli Templeton and Darren Minchington have provided some depth, most others remain a mystery even to Wikipedia.
St Kilda’s limitations in building a list to vault them back up were clear; the side was more susceptible to the fickle hand of free agency but that problem and the compromised drafts weren’t unique to them. Not a player remains of the Saints’ 2010 draft class, the best of whom – small forward Jamie Cripps – went home to Perth as soon as he could. First round picks of following years were either battlers (Seb Ross), injury-cursed (Nathan Wright) or are now gone altogether (Spencer White). Jack Billings might well be a genuine star but Luke Dunstan and Blake Acres are only just starting to make strides.
What St Kilda also didn’t do was turn the loss of their free agents (Brendon Goddard and Nick Dal Santo) into a positive quite as well as the Dogs did when they shed their own fan favourites like Lake, Adam Cooney, Shaun Higgins and want-away skipper Ryan Griffen. In 2012 the Saints gave up picks 12 and 13 in the process of overpaying for fringe forward Tom Lee and ruckman Tom Hickey, who has at least started 2016 in form. Across three drafts and as their ageing warriors start to feel the pinch, they’ve failed to adequately replace the top-end talent that’s gone. The Dogs have done so with interest.
But that’s how quickly it can get away from you when rebuild time comes; two clubs placed almost identically in 2010 are now poles apart. Last week both the Bulldogs and Saints attacked their fixtures with admirable gusto but for far different results. If current form holds on Saturday, we’ll see a little more literally the net result of their respective approaches to challenging again for that elusive second flag. It could be an ego-bruising day for the Saints.
Quote of the week
He said ‘I’m not going to talk about that’ and then he rubbed my heavily pregnant stomach and asked me if I would like him to bless the unborn child.
- Veteran football journalist Caroline Wilson, in an interview on Fox Footy’s Open Mike, reveals Gary Ablett Senior’s highly unusual answer to a probing post-game question immediately following his iconic and doomed one-man show in the 1989 grand final.
Photograph of the week
Football’s young ’uns should respect their elders, pay their dues, speak when spoken to and never get too far ahead of themselves, they say. But can we really promote such dour standards of behaviour while also pining for the days when sportspeople did and said interesting things? Looking at this photo of Carlton first-gamer Jacob Weitering getting stuck into Tigers veteran Jack Riewoldt last weekend, we may have a few pointers.
Bits and bobs
After 24 years of mostly mindless yeehawing and pie night repartee, Channel Nine’s The Footy Show finally has its first full-time female panelist with the appointment of former Seven Network newsreader (and Geelong’s No1 ticket holder) Rebecca Maddern to a co-hosting role, remarkable in many respects but certainly not a situation short on irony, coming as it does after the high profile fall-out between two of the show’s male stars.
At times like these we’re now wont to invoke the metaphorical jumping of sharks, but then when Arthur Fonzarella made his infamous leap he was still drawing 30 million American eyeballs per episode. The question lingering more awkwardly now for Nine is how many viewers will actually be on hand to witness Maddern’s debut, with ratings for the show’s first episode averaging out at 546,000 nationally and a meagre 392,000 in its Melbourne stronghold. But even that represents their best opening night in five years. With commercial network shows like this, those parties who protest loudest about the cro-magnon content are not so much the problem as the greater majority who no longer care enough to tune in at all, less complain.
Moving on to more worthy fare, it’s unlikely to have escaped you at this point, but Jimmy Bartel’s compelling interview with Hamish McLachlan is certainly worth a look if you missed it. The 2007 Brownlow medalist, likely embarking on his final season of league football, took the fraught, admirable step of publicly addressing his experiences with family violence and will spend the year waging an unconventional awareness campaign by not shaving or cutting his hair for the rest of the AFL season.
“There are millions of people who will be watching Geelong play this year,” said Bartel, “so if I can get kids asking their father why I have a big dirty beard and long ratty hair, I will be achieving something. I would love it if a father has to explain to his son or daughter that I’m doing it to raise awareness around domestic violence, and to also explain the issues surrounding domestic violence, and to have an important conversation around it. What Rosie Batty has done is amazing, but it is well past the time that more males took the lead and took a stand. I play one of the most macho games in this country, and I’m happy to take the lead in saying that enough is enough. It can’t be commonly accepted in our society.”
Hear, hear. Proceeds from an accompanying fundraising campaign will go to the Luke Batty Foundation and Bethany, a Geelong-based group.
