Dale Finucane from quiet kid signed unseen by Bulldogs to Storm leader

[Realist90]

Ummm I understand where your coming from but his a gun. Under the right coach he'll go close to backrower of the yr.

I dunno man he does have potential but he seems like he's got himself a mad ego that's working against his potential.

 

[_G-Dog_]

Another recruitment/retention masterstroke

 

[jamma01]

I think everyone is over rating Finucane he has allways played in a dominate forward pack and everyone looks good at Melbourne. If he was playing for Newcastle he would be a plodder

 

[Dingo]

Taupau is overrated. I loved him in his first year under dymock. That was about it.

Hasler never gave him a chance

 

[Dingo]

I was a bit mystified about why we let Finucane go when we did, but it's just not worth losing any sleep over in my opinion. He's a reasonably good player but not a game breaker. When we let him go people were calling for Jackson to be sacked and he's kicked on and proven to be a far better player with genuine ability to break games with an intelligent run or hard hitting defense. If I could be bothered searching I'd probably be able to find posts from some of those making sour grapes posts who wanted Jackson gone. Finucane's main strength is that he plays hard. He doesn't really have any skill set that will make him go down as one of the greats of the game. If the media didn't love to stir shit for Bulldogs fans he'd be getting no media attention at all.

At the end of the day you can dwell on the negatives for the next ten years or just move on and hope that we can create circumstances that mean we'll make him regret leaving. We scalp players from other teams too. I'm sure that Penrith fans have some sour grapes about us getting Frank Pritchards best years of football. St Helens probably would have liked to keep James Graham as a one team player. Dragons fans probably wish the Morris twins had spent their careers in red and white. Parra fans might wish we hadn't picked up Willie Tonga or Andrew Ryan. Manly fans might wish we'd never signed Mark O'Meley. Tigers fans might look at Terry Lambs career and have regrets that he wasn't retained for his entire career. Warriors fans probably regret seeing Nigel Vagana spend his best years in blue and white. The nature of professional football is that players will seek money and better opportunity elsewhere and only fans can be truly loyal.

If I was born as milk I'd hope that I was sold to a kenneler who I know would grieve so avidly if I wound up on the floor. I think I'd make a killing if I put Bulldogs logo's on tissues and started selling them on here because it seems crying over the past is a very popular pass-time now. I get that people want to keep hating on Hasler and the board of our club. But it just seems like a lost cause to me. If you want to have a say about the board spend your money on being a leagues club member for the pre-requisite time to be a voting member rather than whinging. You will only frustrate yourself and feel powerless if you dwell on simple things like seeing a player do well after we release them.

Thats well written but I am hardly crying over spilt milk mate. Im more annoyed than anything.

It is just another reminder of the pathetic recruitment and retention displayed by Des over the past few years.

 

[Alan79]

Thats well written but I am hardly crying over spilt milk mate. Im more annoyed than anything. It is just another reminder of the pathetic recruitment and retention displayed by Des over the past few years.

Recruitment and retention decisions only become a huge issue when you don't have quality juniors coming through and to me thats where the issues have arisen for the team. I'm realistic in knowing that between Greenburg and the squad management crew Hasler bought in that our junior ranks declined We began to rely on moving in players of a lesser quality than we used to produce particularly in the backline. My main point in this thread was meant to be that Finucane is a decent player and could still develop into more than he is because he has the work ethic. But his best attributes are that he's reasonably aggressive. Finucane is roughly the equivalent to me of Adam Elliot in ability to my way of thinking. Elliott would be as deserving of this article if he was playing in a squad contesting for a premiership.

I think that RFM will potentially be better than Finucane given that he shows many of the same aggressive attributes but has an offload and is less predictable to begin with. Nobody is congratulating Hasler for bringing him to the club because they much prefer to complain. Some decisions were poor and I'd have liked to see Finucane retained over Williams at the time, but it's all in the past now and not worth remaining angry about. Hasler is gone now and from what the club is saying we'll be getting back towards what made our club great again by putting more effort into producing quality again. Basically we're in a position where things will change and it just gets on my nerves that people want to carry on with the negativity that has been abundant here for two years.

 

[maroondog72]

For mine I would love to see dale back in the blue and white another player whith great potential that was realised at another club just hope the same thing doesn't happen with kas

 

[chisdog]

Can't keep everyone ... Dale wwhen he left us had butterfingers and was a penalty machine.

Dale Finucane Stats - source NRL Stats
============
Year Errors Penalties Games
2012 6 2 14
2013 10 7 25
2014 7 19 27

Total 23 28 66
Ave per game
0.35 0.42

 

[chisdog]

And no doubt Kas will be a far better player at the Storm, too.

Congrats to Dale. You earned it.

Kas will be lucky to survive the pre-season!

 

[Como Dog]

Grahams lost 8

Imagine if we beat Saints in the grand final next year.

 

[Como Dog]

Thats well written but I am hardly crying over spilt milk mate. Im more annoyed than anything.

It is just another reminder of the pathetic recruitment and retention displayed by Des over the past few years.

I am annoyed too. We needed forwards who could play long minutes to balance out the impact on our large pack from the changes to the interchange.

 

[Oatley Dog]

2014 stats

Josh Jackson
Games played: 28 (Errors: 20, Penalties: 20)

Tony Williams
Games played: 27 (Errors: 22, Penalties: 12)

Dale Finucane
Games played : 27 (Errors: 7, Penalties: 15)

Aiden Tolman
Games played: 22 (Errors: 5, Penalties: 15)

You overlooked how many minutes they played. 3 were starting forwards who played nearly 80m each and Finucane was a benchie who only came on for a couple of short stints. He is like Browne. You could set your watch by his first penalty and then the dropped ball to follow. Good luck to him. I would've been happy for him to stay but he is not a player you lose sleep over when he goes.

 

[XR6T]

99.9% Baa was a Bulldog Junior playing for Chesterfield and was enticed to Wests Magpies at the time, it was the mighty Bullfrog that brought Baa back home where he belonged.

Where is Chesterfield....is that in Qld?
You meant Chester Hill....you must be overloaded on that humble pie that it's confusing you...lol

 

[Indiandog]

You overlooked how many minutes they played. 3 were starting forwards who played nearly 80m each and Finucane was a benchie who only came on for a couple of short stints. He is like Browne. You could set your watch by his first penalty and then the dropped ball to follow. Good luck to him. I would've been happy for him to stay but he is not a player you lose sleep over when he goes.

played more minutes than Aiden tolman yet similar number of penalties.

may be that was the problem , the super coach didnt know how to use him and more importantly how to coach him.

with storm this year finucane played twice more minutes with more than half the penalties he did in 2014.

 

[SweetFA]

Can't keep everyone ... Dale wwhen he left us had butterfingers and was a penalty machine.

Yet another poor reflection on the coaching staff where players failed to improve their skill set & discipline. Thank you Hasler & Crew

 

[SweetFA]

You overlooked how many minutes they played. 3 were starting forwards who played nearly 80m each and Finucane was a benchie who only came on for a couple of short stints. He is like Browne. You could set your watch by his first penalty and then the dropped ball to follow. Good luck to him. I would've been happy for him to stay but he is not a player you lose sleep over when he goes.

I suggest you talk to some Canterbury "insiders" who were privately fuming Hasler chose to keep others over Finucane. In his absence there has been a notable lack of sting in defence and effort upon effort matched only by J Jackson. Ask any NRL that has been crunched by "chaos"
He was another player poorly utilised & poorly coached under Hasler & Crew

 

[vegny]

Yeah
Other teams tend to keep the players worth keeping.

Give me an example of another team who let a player like JT go?

Ok, Penrith lost Fittler to the roosters.

Wests lost terry lamb to us

Ok, there are a few

But our list it huge, when it comes to losing players you should not lose

You don't see clubs like the roosters, broncos, or storm lose players unless it's of their choosing

Tedesco and GI came to mind.
Point taken though good clubs dont lose good players or players dont want to leave good clubs.

 

[Oatley Dog]

played more minutes than Aiden tolman yet similar number of penalties.

may be that was the problem , the super coach didnt know how to use him and more importantly how to coach him.

with storm this year finucane played twice more minutes with more than half the penalties he did in 2014.

Well the last time they played in the same team Finucance was well behind Tolman in hitups and tackles and while the NRL site doesn't have the mins played in it for that year I can't recall him being the starting second rower in any of the games, particularly given he was behind Pritchard, TRex, Jackson, Eastwood for starters. The bottom line is that when he was with us he made more mistakes per minute of game than anyone in the team apart from maybe Browne and his impact was only soso. He isn't being used any different now than he was then. He has just matured and has a pretty strong pack around him. I wouldn't think he would play any different with us if he was here this year but that is not game breaking stuff. He's just a workhorse and we have plenty of them.

 

[Oatley Dog]

I suggest you talk to some Canterbury "insiders" who were privately fuming Hasler chose to keep others over Finucane. In his absence there has been a notable lack of sting in defence and effort upon effort matched only by J Jackson. Ask any NRL that has been crunched by "chaos"
He was another player poorly utilised & poorly coached under Hasler & Crew

It's irrelevant. Both Pritchard and TRex still had years to run on their respective contract and at the time weren't going anywhere. Add in that we also had Jackson and Eastwood who was playing good footy in 13/14 there was no way we could guarantee a starting spot for him. Then there was Klemm coming through. We even let go of Taupau because we couldn't fit him in. Both The Tank and TRex hit harder than Finucane in 13 as did Eastwood and Graham. Its all good and well to rewrite history but the truth is Finucane wasn't in the top 6 forwards at the Dogs at the time and he wanted to start. Good luck to him but he won't be remembered as anything other than a bloke who had a go.

 

[SweetFA]

It's irrelevant. Both Pritchard and TRex still had years to run on their respective contract and at the time weren't going anywhere. Add in that we also had Jackson and Eastwood who was playing good footy in 13/14 there was no way we could guarantee a starting spot for him. Then there was Klemm coming through. We even let go of Taupau because we couldn't fit him in. Both The Tank and TRex hit harder than Finucane in 13 as did Eastwood and Graham. Its all good and well to rewrite history but the truth is Finucane wasn't in the top 6 forwards at the Dogs at the time and he wanted to start. Good luck to him but he won't be remembered as anything other than a bloke who had a go.

Pritchard & Eastwood hitting hard???? Maybe the showers after training.Trex couldn’t hit the side of a bus his decision making was so awkward Maybe once a game and neither had the work ethic of Finucane. It was his workrate that made our pack look good. Since Eastwood returned to the club he did not have 1 good season was injury prone & never fit.Finucane the bloke who has a go will play for NSW in 2018.
It’s all relevant yet youngsters nurtured by The Club & released for overrated, underperforming overpaid plodders aka Trex & Eastwood & Pritchard part 2.Just another sad endictment on the clubs retention & recruitment programme getting it consistently wrong since 2012.