Financial pressures, a player exodus, coaching appointment that only lasted a week, Call to Action Day, young group of players thrown in the deep end and some heavy hidings along the way have all formed part of the Bulldogs’ journey to the QEO on Sunday for the BFNL elimination final against Sandhurst.

Sunday’s finals return comes just under three years after fears the club’s long-term viability was at stake through a combination of financial difficulties and a dwindling membership base that forced Gisborne to hold a Call to Action Day in December of 2015.

“The club was facing some financial issues… it was getting close to being dire and certainly needed to be addressed,” former president Colin Rodgers said this week.

“What had happened was the club year after year after year was running in deficit and we were going backwards and the debt just kept getting added to.

“We never had high player payments, but it was more around the club wasn’t able to earn enough money to basically exist, so we probably had to draw a bit of a line in the sand.”

The Call To Action Day came on the heels of an exodus of experienced players post the 2015 season in which the Bulldogs – who a year earlier had lost the 2014 preliminary final by five points against Sandhurst – slid out of the five to sixth.

The list of departures after the 2015 season left a gaping hole – former captain Casey Summerfield, star ruckman Tom Waters and forward Matt Knox to Macedon; key position swingman Ben Sonogan, 2012 Michelsen medallist Scott Walsh and gun full-back Tim Walsh to Riddell; Hamish and Josh Govan crossed to Kyneton; and Tom May moved on.

After the 2015 season the Bulldogs also had Rod Sharp step down as coach in early October; and Jeff Gieschen step into the role and then step out of it a week later, leaving the club on the hunt again.

It wasn’t until late November that the Bulldogs finally had their coach in place for 2016 when Brad Spear – who had previously coached the club’s reserves and under-18s – was appointed.

Given the experience the Bulldogs had lost after 2015 and the off-field position the club found itself in, the mantra of 2016 for Gisborne was a year of stabilisation combined with one of the youngest senior teams the club had fielded in its history that dates back to 1879.

The new-look Bulldogs of 2016 were a team of local young products that was reflected in for 14 of their 18 games, they played with the bare minimum of 22 player points.

In the three seasons of AFL Victoria’s player points system, the Bulldogs of 2016 are the only BFNL club to have fielded teams with the minimum 22 points.

“It’s going to be a year where we have to be patient… success won’t be determined by wins, but rather how much we’ve improved over the course of the season,” Spear said in the lead-up to round one.

“We know we’re going to make lots of mistakes, but we’ll work on those throughout the season to fix them and, basically, try to get a team of 19 to 20-year-olds playing like 23 to 24-year-olds as quickly as we can.”

In what was essentially a re-build from scratch for the Bulldogs, a new captain was also installed – 24-year-old Jarrad Lynch.

“We lost a lot of players at the end of that 2015 season and rumours started to spread that the club wasn’t in the best spot financially and that can make it not very enticing for external people to come and jump on board with a club that isn’t doing the best,” Lynch said this week.

“It was a tough time for the club, but you look at it now and we’ve got a massive sponsorship and member base, strength in the juniors, the senior team is doing a lot better and it’s a far different place to three years ago.

“With the captaincy over the past few years, I’ve been really fortunate that I’ve had a good young group of players around me who have supported me and I was still able to get help from some of the key older players like Anthony Belcher, Ollie Messaoudi, Luke Saunders and Rod Sharp, who are all legends of the club and helped me through that transition phase.”

The young Bulldogs won three games in 2016 and finished above only the winless Maryborough, with the side enduring a patch of five games in a row between rounds 10 and 14 when it kicked scores of just 49, 41, 10, 30 and 40.

That score of 1.4 (10) was kicked against eventual premier Sandhurst in a 149-point hiding at the QEO.

The fact the Bullodgs are now the Dragons’ elimination final opponent highlights just how far Gisborne has come in its rebuild.

“We had lost a lot of senior players after 2015 and weren’t in a good position financially, so that 2016 season was all about just get the club back on its feet, consolidate and get ourselves out of debt,” current president John Wood said.

“In terms of the playing group, we basically took the under-18 side from the year before and, as they say, took them to the swimming pool, threw them in the deep end without a life jacket to see if they could swim and they’ve all been able to get back out the other end.

“We worked really hard in 2016 off-field in terms of our membership and sponsorship and were very careful with every cent we spent.

“Our players were all basically being paid minimum wage and they understood where the club was at.”

But in an encouraging sign for the club, the three wins in 2016 doubled to six in 2017 and the club boasted its first BFNL Rising Star winner in young forward Jack Scanlon.

Scanlon had wasted no time making his mark on senior football. In his senior debut in round one of 2016 he kicked six goals against Kyneton.

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As well as Scanlon, other names such as Jack Reaper, Jake Conolan, Nick Doolan, Tom Wood, Jaidyn Owen, Trent Crosbie, Ryan Baker, Riley Paterson, Josh Grabham and Liam Rodgers have emerged as exciting senior talent.

“Brad did a fantastic job with his coaching throughout those two years. We knew it was group that could play because a lot of the boys had come through together right through from the under-9s and won a lot of junior premierships along the way,” Wood said.

“What we wanted Brad to do was keep the group together and keep the morale up and he was certainly able to do that.”

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Spear’s assistant coach in 2017 was Hawthorn 2008 premiership player Clinton Young, who joined the Bulldogs in a massive coup for the club given the void of experience.

Young, who has endured his injury frustrations in both seasons, took over as coach this year and has continued on from the work of Spear by leading the Bulldogs back to the finals with an 11-7 record, which has included winning 10 of their past 13 games following a shaky 1-4 start.

“Youngy has been fantastic for us. He’s quietly spoken and not the fire and brimstone type of a coach, but in terms of our gameplan and style of play, he has been wonderful in the way in which he has been able to teach the players,” Wood said.

“Those 2016 and 2017 years were all about the club just getting through, keeping the group together and getting games into the boys and this year they worked really hard during the pre-season on how we’re going to play.

“You could see early on we were doing it in patches and the signs were there.

“Probably the real eye-opener for us was our game at Eaglehawk in round three when we led them a merry dance in the first half (26 points up) at their ground, but copped some injuries in the second half and they got on top of us (lost by 47).

“But that was a critical game in really solidifying the belief for the players in what Youngy has been teaching them and working on that if they go out and do it, it stacks up. We didn’t win the game, but we got a lot out of that day.

“We’re obviously looking forward to playing finals again this weekend, but we’re certainly not there just to make up the numbers.”

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