If TLTR … just mosey on …
I can’t believe that in a very small way, I’m starting to agree with TK conspiracy theorists that there must be some type of loser curse on our club …
It’s not that far fetched is it … like come on, except for a shit win against the Tigers, we can’t even win at our spiritual home ground at Belmore against clubs with half their F***** talent missing … and even if we do get on a 35 minute role in a game … along comes crap refereeing decisions, or a few injuries to key players to F*** us up.
If we were to put common sense aside, and consider for a minute that we are cursed or jinxed …. there’s absolutely no doubting it started the day Greenturd signed that Manly money rat and allowed him to come in with his shit entourage and take over our club.
Looking back, that to me is the day the club looked the DNA that Bullfrog built, our culture, pathways, development and history in the eye and said F*** you.
Yes we all know he got us to a couple of losing GF’s, but was that worth the hole he left us in and us selling out our clubs heart and soul?
There’ll be some saying that was years ago, stop blaming the past we have to move on, and yes that’s true, the club and us fans are moving on, we have no choice … but there’s no denying we’re still paying for shit decisions from the past ..
To name just one … Dale Finucane …. that young Bulldog should have been groomed to be our long term 10 year captain / leader .. he should still be leading our team right now ! …. instead who do we have leading us .. no one, a decision from the past that we’re still paying for in a big way ..
Cookie - should still be here.
Tapau - should be still here, about to retire after years of service and his replacement 1st grade seasoned off the bench and ready to go ..
Ennis - should have stayed while we developed our own 9
Pritchard
Kasiano
Klemmer - was blue and white through and through, they killed that, he should still be here ..
There’s to many to list … all terrible decisions that stripped us down to where we are today ..
Yes it happened in the past and we need to let it go ….. but the facts remain, that and a lot of other shit decisions after that, is why we are where we are today.
Watching my beloved Bulldogs right now is like watching a 4 cylinder Hyundai in a V8 super car race .. we need bigger body’s and a shit load more power !
Unfortunately in this game power doesn’t come from just size and muscle alone …. the power needed for this game really comes from training bodies to be year in year out seasoned players, and that’s what takes the most amount of time to develop, a team of players that have the power and strength to dominate and play well for the whole season .. that’s the #1 thing we’re missing throughout this whole team right now ..
The biggest mistake from the past that’s biting us in the ass was the total break down of our pathways, our junior development and our attention to preparing the next man up … Hasler with his Manly silvertails mentality conned us into thinking we could move on juniors and just buy whatever talent we needed, …… “WHY” spend the money on trying to develop talent ourselves when all that money can go to 1st grade and premierships, “short term thinking” …
That “WHY” was because that’s who we were as a club, we don’t buy, we develop our own, they killed that heart and soul part of our club and watched it die, if there is a curse, this is probably where it manifested itself !!
The only way to break it is to do exactly what Gould is doing now, rebuild the pathways, focus on development, continue doing it and be patient with these kids while they build the power strength and experience that’s needed for week in week out full seasons of 1st grade footy ..
I’ve said this before .. we might get lucky and be able to buy a Tino or Haas … but the reality is it probably won’t happen, we need to develop our own alpha props, our own size muscle and power, when the club puts in the years of hard work that’s needed to develop our own players like that all over the park instead of just trying to buy it, plus they have a good production line of seasoned junior depth to back it up … that’s the day we get back to who we are as a club and break this so called curse ..