This weekend is going to be a weekend to remember if you’re a Bulldogs supporter.
Two cyclonic occasions are swarming towards each other to create a red, white and blue superstorm.
Our AFLW team is in the Grand Final! Dramatic preliminary finals are our stock in trade these past few years and Saturday night’s nail biter will go down as one of the great Bulldog moments.
Brooke Lochland’s classy left foot snap broke Demon hearts and sent the VU Whitten Oval into raptures as she was swamped by teammates with 90 seconds left on the clock.
The wafer-thin line between agony and ecstasy was visible from every vantage point.
Grand Finals are always dramatic, but there’s a few narrative lines running side by side this week.
The euphoria of a history-making Grand Final appearance has been balanced out by a tribunal appeal for our captain Katie Brennan, and also the emotion of those women who will miss through injury.
Our women will meet the Brisbane Lions at Ikon Park for the premiership cup. As the old saying goes, this one will be played for all of the marbles.
And of course, after months of anticipation, we will finally get to see the big men fly when Carlton and Richmond kick off the season on Thursday night.
The Bulldog clan will have to wait until Sunday before we get a look at our boys in season 2018 though.
A date with our arch rivals, the Greater Western Sydney Giants, awaits.
If past encounters are anything to go by, it should be an exciting match with a bit of extra feeling in it.
There is the very likely possibility that we will see some debutants up in Canberra as well as some recruits from other clubs in our tri colours for the first time, but we should take a moment to acknowledge our 100-game milestone man Jackson Macrae.
A premiership hero back in 2016, Jackson has been a staple of the Bulldogs midfield from the moment he joined the club back in 2012.
Despite being a man of few words, one of the things that grabbed me when getting to know Jackson was his self-belief.
Having watched Jackson from up close and from the outer for these past few years I’ve come to admire, among many things, his appetite to endure punishment.
Time and again, he gets himself to where the ball is, brings his teammates into the game and the opposition will bury him into the dirt with heavy hits.
With almost no fuss, he simply gets up and gets to the same spot again and again and again.
We’ll need him up in Canberra on Sunday where the contest will be willing.
A tantalising weekend for us Bulldogs. Good luck to both teams. We’ll be riding every bump with you.
