Burton Flanno  halves with the Armadillo at FB and an experienced 9... 

I think with TB being an ex half, it may appeal to him to be part of a team that is looking to change this up with less pressure. 

After covid break Flanagan looked to be a key player for Roosters with Keary concussed half the time. He is now the victim of their end of year failures.

Since our halves havent made the positions their own, we need to go after Flano. Unless of course we are making behind the scenes work on Burton who I like even more

Kyle Flanagan to the Dogs???
Roosters scapegoat.
On Foxsports

Now that hes gone, I might even support the 4th and 5th tackle settler run inside the opposition 10m line......

Here’s a story someone posted on the Kennel months ago about a couple of Dogs young guns at Westfields Sports High. 

Surprised you would suggest something to reward your whipping boy Aiden Tolman...that may have been a classic tackle in the day but would be tenuous at best in successfully implementing it. 

The problem is that any tackle differentiation leads to consequences both intended and unintended.  Take the scenario of a player making a classic leg tackle getting to marker before the ball is played.  Brilliant attacking play.  Player brought down by leg tackle.  Defence in disarray.  Attack ready to go.  Tackler gets up slowly, dawdles to marker giving defence time to reset. What's fair.  Just call it a tackle.

I agree Mdog. Sometimes the ref lets players wrestle and tussle while standing without calling held resulting in either an unfair offload (too long after the attackers momentum has been halted) or an attacker actually being forced back and with the momentum putting him in an unnecessary position for an injury. I am also against a player being gang tackled and then lifted to be driven over the sideline or back over the tryline. If it can be done in one motion while a tackle being made that's ok but to hold a player upright until the "cavalry" arrives, no go.

Give the newsreader first shot.

Jai field is leaving Parra might be an option for us in the halves or at fullback. 

But it is hard for smaller fullbacks these days.

After I put the mock on Sailor players are paying me not to mention them, but Field is a cheapskate.

This has merit, has to be one on one and try saving.

The genie is out of the bottle once coaches discovered the value of wining the ruck, it is a constant battle between coaches and the rules committee.

I think a tackle should be just that - a tackle. The ref to call held as soon as PROGRESS is stopped. Dominance will bring it's own rewards.  Get rid of subjective judgements.  Voluntary tackles to be immediately penalised.

I think he is worth persisting - at fullback. 
He needs to make the position his own and learn to chime in to sweep moves and throw that last pass to winger

A rule I would like introduced is if a player tackles a player around the legs (slow tackler) ref should call "classic tackle" and the attacker cannot play the ball until the legs tackler gets to marker.

It rewards the tackler and his teams defensive line in a similar manner to the surrender tackle does.

Think of it like this......winger makes a break down the sideline.... fullback tackles the winger seound the legs and brings him down. Ref calls "classic tackle" allowing both the fullback to get to marker as well as the defensive line to reset.

Thoughts?

ODF you will find that this season the majority of season ending injuries happened outside of tackles. Players were doing ACL, PCL, MCL with no one within koowee of them. 

I blame the grounds primarily and perhaps the boots or the human growth protein shakes the players take these days which makes their ligaments as fragile as the filament in an old globe.....

I've never seen so many players do knee ligaments like this season. With no one near them. Just a simple step or change of direction.

The newsreader lacks aggression & willingness to put his body on the line as the last line of defence..... like you’ve said, hopefully T Baz & Furner can lift his game to another level. 

The newsreader has the speed and is also excellent under a high ball but needs someone to make him feel ten foot tall and bulletproof...I can understand his hesitancy this year...hopefully Barrett and co will instill that....the newsreader is well liked on these pages.

That Parramatta game over the weekend was Paul Carriage all over again.

We certainly need a much better half and hooker. But we are also desperate for a prop or two that runs hard. And it would help having a super fast fullback with Hoppas brain 

What stands out to me is the quality and depth at prop and   the halves.

O'Meley, Price, Rauhihi, Hall, (Mason), (Asotasi)
Sherwin, Anasta, Trindall, (Thurston?) - Thursty probably only played reserve grade in 2002.

A lot of our 2nd rowers were solid clubmen, but they did a lot of work in attack and defence.

Matt Utai made a lot of good carries and plenty of yards.

What we still need for 21 is a good half and hooker, the forwards and backs should be significantly stronger, but the team needs direction.

6 again shifts the balance between attack and defence, I prefer it to the wrestle, painfully slow play the balls and block plays.

Teams need to be fit and it favors smaller more mobile backrowers and halfs that run the ball.

The downsides are it seems arbitrary at times and some refs are over doing it.
With an offseason teams will handle it better and the refs need to tone it down a bit.

I'm noticing a lot of leg injuries with players dropping on lower legs or 3 man tackles driving players into awkward positions. I am not sure what can be done, but I would like to see less of this.

A game with the balance in favor of attack allows all body shapes to play and rewards vision and execution.
A slow game rewards big powerful runners, a good kicking game and set moves.

There is no perfect game, but attack and defence should be rewarded.

Tols was perhaps too old to learn new tricks, but I agree a lot of his runs were because someone passed him the ball and no one else wanted it.

I consider Jackson, Elliott and Thompson similar to Tols but offering a bit more in attack.

Marki, the only problem with a "2020" style of play is that it reminds me of "2005" the almost touch football era and that only lasted for one season. The V'RLol wants to speed the game up for the purpose of attracting fans but the teams can't sustain such a style because of the amount of injuries that will occur. We do not have that many super human, athletically superior beings playing the game. The six again to me is not an improvement to the game, it's just a quicker way to burn players out.

HD,

While that squad list doesnt instill any fear and has lots of forgotten names in there, the first grade team was full of names that every bulldog fan will remember fondly.
Patten, Utai, Vagana, El Masri, Anasta, Sherwin, Mason, Omeley, Asotasi, etc

There was a significant jump in talent between our first grade team and the squad players.
Nowdays, the first grade team is not much (if any) improvement on the reserve graders who are in the top 30.

The other key thing is that the above team had brains and were leaders. There were probably 5 captains in the above lists of payers. They all knew their abilities and they knew their fellow players' abilities.
Our current crop seem to not have anywhere near the brains of the above team. They cannot dictate games. They cannot swing games.

My concern with the current team is that there is no one (other than Hoppa) that is old and wise to know what is going on. Unfortunately Hoppa is not vocal enough to influence or inspire his fellow teamates. Jackson is inspirational but im afraid doesnt have the footy nous to take us to the next level.

I hope we find a future captain in the halves again. Its almost a must at this stage. I would have loved to get Burton and make him captain. He has what it takes.

ODF, Tolman's greatest attribute was his consistency. But he was a very limited player.

Unfortunately, in a team like ours with little to no footy nous or brains, he found himself getting in the way.
Consistency is not a hallmark of a team that is in the lower part of the ladder. Usually these teams have the ability to score and play well but do it far too infrequently and that is why they miss the finals. Tigers, St George and Manly are perfect examples of this.

When Tolman won the premiership in 2009, he was playing with Smith, Slater, Cronk and Inglis. They even had Brett Finch in the spine who was an organising half.
That team just needed a player in the middle to clean up in defence. Tolman did this along with Dallas Johnson who was another clone of him.

For a team like ours that need to develop into a 2020 rugby league team, we need both x-factor players (even if they are rocks and diamonds) as well as players that have the natural instinct to play what is in front of them. These are the hallmarks of players with nous and footy brains. Unfortunately, they dont come easy. It can take years to either develop these types of players or inherit them from outside.

First things first. Lets get the x-factor players, lets get the team playing 2020 style footy and then hopefully confidence will result into wins and the team will learn to WIN games.
I still think we are 3 years from getting into finals

I guess our biggest problem is solid clubmen. We have too many of them. Almost every forward in our side is a solid clubman. That’s why CHN stood out. He had some ‘x-factor’ 

hd, you talk about solid clubmen and given the right team around him Tolman was just that a solid clubman. I know a lot of people only saw the 4th and 5th tackle hitups, but if he had a decent pack around him and a backline that were playing in their correct position and had an idea of what they were doing he would not have been put in that position (constantly). He was just doing his job and looking for work to help the team.

Other really funny thing from around 2000.

In Ricky Stewart's flegg team everyone was raving about SBW, the other Williams and this guy Don Johnson (or something like that). Thurston might have got a mention.
Anyway Thurston was brilliant, Johnson was playing injured, but didn't do much.

Outside of Thurston funnily enough the other player that really impressed was Trent Culter.

It is worth watching the Johnsons and Culters in the lower grades to see a Thurston, it is even better when we keep Thurston.

We have some good young players coming through, we need to keep them and give them opportunities.

We had a 29 man squad in 2002.

Including :-
Adam Brideson
Glen Hall
Glen Hughes 
Corey Hughes
Gavin Lester
Steve Reardon
Travis Norton
Dennis Scott
Nathan Sologinkin
Tony Grimaldi 
Jamie Feeney
Todd Ploglase

Tricky Trindall - import
Significant imports, Anasta, O'Meley, Patten, Darren Smith, Vagana, Rauhihi?

So around 12 out of 29 were solid club players, 5-6 quality imports and one experienced import towards the end of his career. Smith and O'Meley may have been the only guys playing regular rep footy when we signed them.
I don't think Folkes was an outstanding coach, but sometimes a team just comes together.
It is mostly a mix of sold clubmen and locally developed talent.

This shows the value of developing talent and keeping solid clubmen.
For many of the clubmen list above this was their only real shot.

I also remember being at the 2003 semi final vs the chooks, Folkes preferred Glen Hughes to Asotasi, when it came to team selection Folkes and Pay are very similar.

2002 is the most interesting Dogs season ever, the team achieved right up to their potential and eeked out some great wins. For some of the more ordinary players in the team, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

* love that line "

I live that line....
Although I always thought he says "disappeared like a fart in the wind"