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Michael Gardiner from St Kilda and Ben Hudson from Western Bulldogs contest a throw-in during the AFL 1st Preliminary Final between the St Kilda Saints and the Western Bulldogs at the MCG.
It’s not every year we get two premiership favourites at close to full strength playing off for a piece of silverware in March. But this is a unique situation and a great opportunity to see who can draw first blood between two teams I’m predicting, and hoping, will be this year’s grand finalists.
In many respects, the 2010 NAB Cup grand final is the perfect entrée of what promises to be a mouth-watering main course come September. Both clubs have been starved of the ultimate success for far too long, and I know premierships don’t grow on trees, but surely now St Kilda and the Bulldogs have borne enough fruit to deserve the sweet taste of victory?
It’s been 56 years for the Bulldogs, the longest current premiership drought in the league, while for the Saints it’s been 44 years since that famous grand final win in 1966. Whoever said there’s no room for sentiment in football is spot on, even if the Dogs and the Saints both make it, one still has to lose.
So will it be the Year of the Dog or a dog of a year for the Western Bulldogs?
The Cats of ’07 famously ‘kept a lid on it’ for the entire season, and it seems the Bulldogs will need to be ‘kept on a leash’ to avoid getting too far ahead of themselves. President David Smorgan felt compelled to call for calm in front of around 12,000 fans at the clubs family day, all in an effort to appease the insatiable appetite of long suffering fans.
Will it affect the players?
If you consider all the pre-season hype has been focused on the Bulldogs, and after the heartbreak of two preliminary finals in two years, the group is mature and looks ready to take the next step. The midfield is strong, fast and experienced, the back six is solid with the best full back in the comp Brian Lake anchoring the side, while the forward line is potent and diverse, of course not forgetting the recruitment of Barry Hall, the power forward many believe to be the final piece in the premiership puzzle.
Jason Akermanis declared the premiership window as wide open as it could possibly get, and I couldn’t agree more. But lets also remember as the hype and expectation builds externally so too does the pressure internally. How the club and its players handle this added pressure will no doubt determine just how dangerous the Bulldogs bite is.
Can the Saints go marching in?
The sting of last years heartbreaking loss will no doubt be a driving force, and no matter what St Kilda says 2010 is all about redemption. It’s been a horrid off-season and far from ideal preparation for a club knocking on the door of a premiership. Luke Ball left for nothing, Andrew Lovett was a disaster and Brett Peake has shown little if anything in the NAB Cup to date.
As a result, it feels like St Kilda has been almost forced to defend itself from an unforeseen public backlash. Finally the NAB Cup started and the club could let its football do the talking. Maybe all the off-field drama will in fact galvanise the group? Only time will tell but there’s no doubt internally the Saints will be doing everything possible to make the summer a distant memory.
Positively though, the Saints are almost injury free and have all but picked up from where they left off last year. The midfield group is as damaging as any, David Armitage has emerged as a star of the future and Nick Riewoldt appears to be fit and firing. In my mind he is the most important player in the competition to his team. No Riewoldt, no St Kilda. An injury free year for the skipper is crucial to the Saints chances of going one better in 2010.
There’s no doubt daring to dream can quickly become a nightmare and its true, being ripe and ready doesn’t always mean you bring home the pickings. But either way it would be a fairytale year no matter whom you support if either St Kilda or the Bulldogs were to win.
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