Good post. I was thinking about those Grand Finals in the years you listed the other day while watching training.Vortex wrote: ↑Sat 20 Jan 2024 3:04pmAnd it's an interestin exercise to break down those teams in 93, 08 and 16Impatient Sainter wrote: ↑Sat 20 Jan 2024 12:46pm
Excellent assessment. I think we are 2 or 3 years away from being real contenters.
When you look at the premiers over the past couple of decades the winning teams have all had a collection of All Australian's and a good number of players who are in the top 10-20 for their positions in the competition - particularly midfielders. With that in mind we have Sinclair, Marshall, Wilkie, Steele, Hill, King and possibly Crouch, Butler, Wood, in that frame. We need our next group like Caminiti, Owens, Windhager, Phillipou, Higgins, Henry, Sharman, Van Es, Wilson etc to get some where near their peak before the older group start to drop away. Then we will need the quality role players at the bottom end of the 23, hopefully we can time our run to keep the window open for sometime.
If we were to pick up a genuine 2nd ruck/tall forward to help Marshall and a dominant key defender it would bridge the gap even quicker IMO. Until then we have the players to remain competitive, but it wont be until the kids peak that we become real contenders.
The bombers had some older stars that were able to give one final elite year of service in their twilight in Tim Watson, Bomber Thompson and Salmon and then had a group of really young players that would go on to be legends of the comp.
Similarly the Hawks in 08 had Shane Crawford, Stewart Dew, Brent Guerra and Trent Croad also supported with a group of young players who went on to be once in a generation types the most notable in Buddy who kicked 108 goals in that year.
And the Dogs In 2016 is arguably the purest of outlier flag examples because they didn't have an older player or players that were considered stars of the comp during their prime and then delivering a final elite performance deep into the twilight of their careers, possibly Mathew Boyd or even Easton Wood being amongst their oldest. But they certainly had a group of kids that would go on to be genuine stars and one generational type in the Bont. The fact their young group were all strong midfielders was a factor.
So maybe we have some of our vets have blinders and if Max kicks 100 and our young players have a Daicos type 2nd year then who knows but statistically speaking we probably are a few years off entering the window.
They were all won by teams at a time when it was widely considered too 'early' in the teams' developments. The Bombers one had a lot of players from Keilor and places like that who had played less than 30 games. They won another in 2000 (after blowing it in '99) but haven't won a final for 20 years.
The 2016 GF might be the only premiership the Bulldogs win with their current side. In that finals series everything clicked for them. They went close again in 2021 but it now appears like they may have squandered an opportunity to win one more with their current list. Still, at least they won one.