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Western Bulldogs fans are fighting a battle between reasons and excuses. Reasons give a sense of justification and forgiveness for a calamity, a catastrophe, something as horrid as the couple hours their football side gave up Sunday afternoon.
Excuses are what they lend to when unfortunately nothing can be attributed to the pitiful effort; nothing can indeed excuse the performance.
Off the top, no-one can suggest that in the space of mere months the Bulldogs’ list has fallen below that of the West Coast Eagles.
Here is a side that finished top four and led at half time in a preliminary final last year. Yet, they completely capitulated against last year’s wooden spooners.
Sure, with time can come improvement, and likewise decline, and it’s become apparent in the preceding rounds of 2011 that these two sides are currently journeying on different paths.
From the opening minutes, where the visitors could hardly stop the West Coast from replicating centre clearance drill after centre clearance drill, it looked ominous.
Indeed the Dogs showed a little resistance in the second term and for parts of the third when they managed to get the margin in and around five goals, but from then on, particularly of course the final quarter, questions need to be asked.
It’s a complete contradiction, or perhaps a massive split amongst the club, that when they decided to make the trek to Perth a day early to acclimatise and give themselves every opportunity to make a stance on a stuttering start to the season, they go and show nothing but an utter lack of professionalism in the last stanza.
Never in the modern age of this now billion-dollar industry should a side throw up the white flag. Not even the Gold Coast, who when you want excuses have them in spades, even consider hoisting up the white bit of cloth.
Yet the players, or the coaching staff, or perhaps a combination of both, allowed the West Coast do as they please and make a mockery of what many pundits believed was a contender for this years’ flag.
Like aforementioned, it’s not as though the Western Bulldogs all of a sudden have lost their ability, lost the brand of football that has seen them play and win numerous finals over recent years.
And even though one should credit the West Coast for their victory, never in a million years should they be winning by the best part of 20 goals. No-one should be.
So how you can explain it? How can we assess and analyse what actually happened, and furthermore, where does that leave the Western Bulldogs in 2011?
If we start at the top, Rodney Eade, already weighed down by a perilously ambitious pass mark for the season, did he and his box do enough to stop the rampage?
There’s one thing to be the lesser side, but it’s another to let the floodgates only be halted by the final siren. It got uglier and uglier and in the end there didn’t seem enough done to try and save face. The margin reflects not only a serious gulf in form but a frightening inability to do anything about it.
An example, if we are to isolate just one of the many positional and tactical decisions from Sunday, was keeping Dale Morris off the untouchable Josh Kennedy.
For the fleeting moments Morris went to the ten-goal man, he had his measure, at worst broke even. However, when Kennedy was gallivanting towards his double-figure haul, Morris was nowhere to be seen.
Then we look at the older players. Some hold their head up high each and every single week, none more evident than the skipper Matthew Boyd. A truly inspirational leader, he has All-Australian written all over him.
Now though there are some that have been there for upwards of seven or eight years who, if their names were not as prolific as they are, would be destined for a stint in the magoos. They are passengers in a side getting games because of the past mixed with a lack of real depth at the club.
And to add salt into the wound, the younger set of players, the lads in and around their third and fourth seasons at the club, are yet to come on and show they belong in the big league.
By now they should have shrugged off their rawness, their training wheels, they’re required to regenerate the club and take it forward. However they’re not, they’re as stagnant as the club’s current premiership credentials.
That leaves the task to too few, and when the sides’ in that sort of shape, these sorts of massacres can occur and evidently leave seasons in tatters even before the halfway mark.
Therefore the Dogs are no longer barking at the ankles of those bigger, premier clubs, sniffing around to steal a cup from under the competitions noses. Now, sadly, they are serving up something resembling their breakfast and bucking that trend appears irreparable.
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