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WHEN looking back through the history of the Bendigo Football League, the 2002 season will be remembered as the dawning of the Gisborne era.
It was the Bulldogs’ third season in the BFL after joining from the Riddell District Football League and featured the first of six consecutive grand final appearances that yielded four premierships.
The foundation of the Bulldogs’ golden era of the 2000s began in mid-November, 2001, when Gisborne landed the signature of Collingwood 1990 premiership player Mick McGuane as senior coach.
McGuane took over a Gisborne side that in 2001 won just three games under Ben Ingleton and finished above only Kyneton on the ladder.
But in the space of 12 months under McGuane the Bulldogs were transformed from 2001 strugglers to the 2002 powerhouse that won 17 of 18 games, culminating in a 27-point grand final win over Golden Square.
This weekend Gisborne’s 2002 premiership will be celebrated with a reunion to coincide with the club’s home game against Golden Square at Gardiner Reserve.
While the Bulldogs were a powerful unit on the field in 2002, the club was equally as strong off the field, and McGuane doesn’t under-estimate the importance of that to Gisborne’s successful year.
“We did a lot of things right off the footy field. Roger Toll as president and his committee put in place a set of ideals and expectations that we as a playing group had to adhere to in order to make inroads into the Bendigo Football League,” McGuane said yesterday.
“I can vividly remember the very first training night I was there. We trained for 25 minutes on some basic ball-handling and decision-making drills because I wanted to strip it back and see our ability to handle the ball and use it.
“But it was miles away from where it needed to be, and I remember driving out of Gardiner Reserve that night thinking, ‘we’ve got some real work to do’.
“During the pre-season we never lost sight of the fact that from that first training session through to our first game in April that we needed to become a better ball-handling side.
“We had short, medium and long-term goals in place right from our first training session, and quite clearly the first goal was our trip to Castlemaine.”
The Bulldogs began the McGuane reign by taking on Castlemaine at Camp Reserve in round one, 2002.
The Bulldogs had failed to beat Castlemaine in their first two years in the BFL, but in McGuane’s first game in charge Gisborne won by 12 points, 13.12 (90) to 11.12 (78). It was a defining game.
“I can still recall that game as it was the real catalyst for launching our season,” McGuane said.
“There were a couple of situations in that game that weren’t pretty.
“But we ironed out some of the indifferent habits the players had formed over time and the players quickly got the message that we as a coaching staff were going to undertake what was expected of our players from day one.”
Asked to elaborate, McGuane said: “There were a couple of situations in that game where players picked and chose when they went at the ball. Whether that was a by-product of being allowed to get away with it previously...
“But right from the outset under pressure you find out about individuals you have never seen or before.
“It was a volatile, combative game of footy and clearly we understood afterwards we had players who thought they could compete that had a different level of what I understood as competition.
“We ascertained from that first game that there would be no individual who was going to pull on a Gisborne jumper who would have a one-handed effort at a contest or pick and choose when they decided to go for the ball.
“We saw some glaring examples that day that we really had to isolate, and I think it’s fair to say that a couple of those individuals who were part of that example of what not to do have come out at the end of the cocoon a lot better, brighter and smarter footballers because of it.”
Among those singled out after the Castlemaine game was Rod Sharp, then a 22-year-old who has gone on to play more than 200 games with the Bulldogs and in four premierships.
“Rod Sharp comes to mind. He’s a fantastic guy and a man now,” said McGuane, who is now coaching Essendon District Football League club Keilor.
“He had an enormous amount of talent, but I remember there were a couple of acts of his that day that I weren’t happy with.
“It was just unfortunate for Sharpy that he was the first one in the gun after that game, but at that point I think we shaped a man.”
The 12-point win over Castlemaine kick-started a home and away season in which the Bulldogs breezed through, finishing four games clear of second-placed Sandhurst with a 15-1 record and percentage of 194.9.
The Bulldogs’ only blemish for the season was a 29-point loss to Maryborough in round eight at Princes Park.
The loss was treated savagely by McGuane, who the following morning – the Queen’s Birthday Monday – put his players through a gruelling 6am training session that current coach Luke Saunders describes as the hardest of his career.
But the loss sparked Gisborne to another level as the Bulldogs won their last 11 games of the year by an average of 61 points.
“There’s a template that we thought was the right way to go about it, and right from that first point at day one there was a consistency of message and continuity of practice and the players understood routine,” McGuane said.
“There was no compromise and non-negotiables in place and to the players’ credit they certainly embraced that and understood the foundation of success from that point.
“To go from a team that won three games in 2001 to a 17-1 team the year after that also had the reserves and under-18s win premierships as well, that doesn’t happen if you don’t understand the basic fundamentals of what we stand for as a footy club.
“It all goes back to that first day back at Castlemaine when we were challenged, but the boys conjured up the courage and won the game... that was a groundbreaking day and set the tone.”
As well as its hard edge – which was McGuane’s answer to his perception of the BFL at the time of being “unaccountable and bordering on soft” – the Gisborne side of 2002 was supremely talented.
Six members of the team – Sharp, Steven Reaper, captain Marcus Barham, Saunders, dual Michelsen medallist Matt Fitzgerald and Ollie Messaoudi – were named in the BFL’s 2000-09 Team of the Decade.
The side also landed a massive recruiting coup mid-season when they signed forward Aaron James straight from the Western Bulldogs.
Nalder medallist Mark O’Sullivan, Chris Curcio, Shane Davis and Michael Dillon would also become elite players of the BFL.
2002 premiership team
B: D. Power, E. Barake,
M. McInerney. Hb: M. Cannard, M. Barham (c), J. Allen.
C: M. O’Sullivan, O. Messaoudi, M. Dillon. Hf: S. Hamilton,
A. James, H. Langbourne.
F: M. Fitzgerald, S. Reaper,
L. Saunders. Foll: A. Cusworth, S. Davis, C. Curcio. Int: R. Sharp, B. James, M. McKenzie.