That's going back a bit far for the dickhead media, they cant remember what they wrote last week, forget the late eighties. You are right though, signing Tunks, Kelly & Mortimer was the catalyst to us becoming competitive. I still rate Mortimer as one of our top 5 signings for what he bought over. (I'm not counting Gus as he was ours before he ever darkened the door at Belmore)
The big difference between what Gus is doing for you as opposed to us is the quality of the signings. It's got fuck all to do with money as the cap is what it is. For us it was Whare, Ciraldo, Newton, Sika Manu to start, then additions like Soward, bringing Wallace home etc. All from successful systems, but hardly Marquee. I think he is going for a quicker fix there, partly because he aint getting any younger & probably couldn't stand Rothfield banging on about another "5 year plan"
To be fair it's probably easier for him to sell the Dogs even at how shit you have been lately, compared to what we were back when he arrived. We had a few short lived glory years, but hardly a glamour club. You guys have history and periods of sustained success on your side.
It's a boom or bust strategy imo. I'm a bit torn on how I hope it plays out tbh. Part of me hopes it works out and you guys get back up the ladder, I hold no ill will to Gus or any other ex Panthers now in Blue & White as they all earned every cent they ever got from us. Also the majority of the fans on here seem like good people, so it's kind of natural to hope good things for you. The other part of me hopes it's a spectacular failure, just because, Fuck off and stop poaching our players and staff. It's irrational, because if it's not the Dogs it's somewhere else as we can't keep em all. But that is part of the tribal nature that makes this sport great. It's fun to have someone to hate, even for 5 minutes until sanity kicks back