Year of the Dog

The mighty blue and white bulldogs are through to the grand finals! Woohoo!! I've been waiting for this moment for yonks. I feel like two years ago, it was their year except that they got docked for the salary cap breaches. Last year, things just crumbled. But this year, their backs are against the wall and they got soemthing to prove. Also, with Pricey leaving at the end of the year, I think the fellas are doing it for their captain, to ensure that he goes out with a bang.

I just love watching the bulldogs play as they are so entertaining. In attack, they have a monster pack led by Steven Price, Mark "Shrek" O'meley, Andrew Ryan and Big WIllie Mason. THese four guys are always on fire. The Bulldogs have too much size in the forwards and skill to boot. ANd then you look at the bench and they have guys like Sonny Bill Williams and Roy Asotasi coming off (don't forget that they also have Jamie Feeney and Dennis Scott running around in premier league).

THe halfback, Brent Sherwin has also been on fire lately as well. To me, he has the best kicking game in the NRL by far. His kitbag is unparelled (save for Andrew Johns but he's injured).......he can kick long, grubbers, 40/20's, field goals. Shifty has got all the moves and I love the jink in his step. He just reads the game so well, knowing when to take the defence on and when to pass it.

ANother one of my favourite players is Willie Tonga. I love this guy. He has been very quite of late as defences are rushing him a bit and focused on shutting him down. But throughout the season, he was absolutely terrorizing opposing backs with his speed, left arm fend and deadly step. He has this killer move where he'll just accelerate and take you on the outside and use a fend to shake of his opposing number. However, that's not his best move. Even better is his shimmy. He'll appear like he'll take you on the outside (run around on your left side) but just execute this killer step and explode onto the right. I saw him do it on Preston Campbell, Matt Gidley, a number of other fools that dare take him on. i heard of this guy before but it seems like he just exploded onto the scene this year. I think it was a combination of playing time, change of scenery and mostly gaining the self-confidence to take on other players. I really look up to this guy because I feel that self-confidence was the main reason he had a break-through year.

The other new kid on the block, Sonny Bill Williams just takes my breath away when I see him play. I can't believe that a kid this young, he's 18, can be so good. He's just awesome and just has mad game. He's big, athletic, possesses brute strength, speed, fantasic step, can offload like crazy but most importantly he's just so confident. There's no fear in his eyes when he takes on players much older and more experienced than him. I don't want to overhype him cause he does come on after the bulldogs pack has already monstered the other side and softened them up for him. But far out, he was just awesome in last Saturday's game. I think Matty Johns best described him as simply "built to play football". Phil Gould added soemthing like "He's different to other kids that have come through. He walks different, acts different" . and its so true.

I've watched a lot of rugby league, but i've rarely seen a kid this good so young except for Karmichael Hunt. This guy is still filliing out his body frame, just imagine how strong he will be when he's like 23. His shoulder charge on Joel Clinton was simply awesome. Then against Paul Fateria, he was wrong footed, but managed to connect with his left shoulder and knocked the living daylights out of the attacker. Wow. It's scary to see this combo of brute strength with skill.

This guy kinda reminds of Amare Stoudemire of the Phoenix Suns, in the NBA. Cause he's also young but has some kind of Hulk-strength that isn't normal for someone of his age. But more importantly, its that confidence and ability to outplay his older peers.

Sunday's game should be awesome. I'm predicting that the Bulldogs will emerge victorious (that's not biased is it?).