Similarities b/w Richmond 2005 & Bulldogs 1997 - Wallace

[one-eyed]

Peter Krupka
The Australian
May 25, 2005

Tuck's coming of age has arrived during a year which Wallace yesterday conceded was already bearing an amazing similarity to 1997: his first full season as an AFL coach with the Western Bulldogs.

The Bulldogs started that season with an upset home loss to Fremantle but a turn in form resulted in the Bulldogs scoring wins over the Rodney Eade-coached Sydney Swans and the then strongest team in the competition, the West Coast Eagles, at the WACA in round six.

This year, the Wallace-coached Tigers suffered a terrible loss to Geelong in the opening round but have since recovered to record a narrow win over the Eade-coached Bulldogs before what could be seen as as season-defining triumph away from home over the power team of the current era, the Brisbane Lions, on Saturday night.

"It's ridiculously weird some of the scenarios that have come up so far," Wallace said. "The similarities are very strong. It's still too early (to say how things will end up) because there are a couple of really big players in the competition just fractionally off the pace."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15397089%255E36035,00.html

[mightytiges]

As long as the similarities don't extend to choking in a prelim final  .

This time around Wallace has a better list of quality talls to use especially at FF and FB. The dogs had Wynd and a young Grant but that's about in terms of decent talls from memory. It's a no brainer comparing Richo and Simmonds to Simon Minton-Connell and James Cook lol as key forwards and Gas to Kretiuk at FB.

[cub]

Lets hope we don't end up playing the cows in a pelim then - I was at that game and fair dinkum at the end I just about shed a tear with the bulldog supporters - They were home and the looks on thier faces and the deadly hush that fell on the final siren - Lets just say I will never forget that walk out of the ground with the doggie supporters wondering what sort of state I would of been in if it were the Tigs.

[mightytiges]

Lets hope we don't end up playing the cows in a pelim then - I was at that game and fair dinkum at the end I just about shed a tear with the bulldog supporters - They were home and the looks on thier faces and the deadly hush that fell on the final siren - Lets just say I will never forget that walk out of the ground with the doggie supporters wondering what sort of state I would of been in if it were the Tigs.

Losing knockout finals leaves an empty feeling no matter what the result  .

Funnily enough this year we've been the ones to come from behind in a few games and pinch wins  .