NORTH Bendigo coach Matt Dillon says the passion among his playing group and fierce will to win have impressed him the most in his first season at Atkins Street.

The old adage that when one door closes, another one opens couldn’t be more true for Dillon.

Twelve months ago Dillon wasn’t reappointed as coach of Newbridge in the Loddon Valley league after four seasons in charge of the Maroons.

But with a vacancy having opened up at Atkins Street after dual premiership coach Rob Bennett stepped down, North Bendigo pounced and signed up Dillon, who on Saturday will lead the Bulldogs into the club’s fifth-consecutive grand final when it plays Leitchville-Gunbower at Huntly.

But to be fair to Newbridge, the coaching change from Dillon to Brad Comer after last season has also worked out well for the Maroons, who will play in next week’s Loddon Valley league grand final.

“It has obviously worked out well… I was lucky the job came up at North Bendigo,” Dillon said this week.

“There was probably a lot of people thinking that after losing a few players the North reign might be over, but I knew from the first meeting with the club that they meant business and that with the players they were looking at bringing in it would still be a very good list.

“It was a really great challenge to keep North up at the top of the ladder, which we achieved, and now we can have a real tilt at winning a flag, which is great for all the boys who have embraced the change.”

There were some big-name departures from the Bulldogs during the off-season, headed by their three leading goalkickers of 2017 in Sam Barnes, Brady Herdman and Rhys Ford, who between them had booted 186 goals last year.

Ruckman Brett Strange was also an out, but the Bulldogs lured back a more than handy replacement – Troy Kelm, who was best on ground in their drought-breaking 2015 grand final win.

With Kelm came two other returning Bulldog premiership players in Jeremy Mills, who went on to finish runner-up in the Cheatley Medal, and Jordan Collins, whose season ended early with a broken ankle.

Another former North Bendigo player, Ben Knight – coming off a Loddon Valley Harding Medal and Calivil United premiership last year – was also a key recruit for the Bulldogs.

But the big question heading into the season was how would the Bulldogs structure up forward and what impact would the loss of Barnes, Herdman and Ford – who traded places with Dillon and went to Newbridge – have on the Bulldogs’ capacity to kick winning scores.

It seemed after round one against Leitchville-Gunbower the impact could be profound given the Bulldogs kicked just six goals and generated only 14 scoring shots for a tally of 6.8 (44).

Yet the Bulldogs go into the grand final averaging 137 points per game – only slightly down on last year’s monstrous 141.

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“We obviously had to develop a new blueprint… we knew we had a lot of goalkickers, but it was a matter of getting the mix right with the small forwards, who we needed to rely on,” Dillon said.

“Getting Sean Christopher in during the season has been good for structure. Over the past few weeks he hasn’t kicked a massive amount of goals, but just his presence has allowed our smaller guys to hit the scoreboard.

“But the beauty for us is we’ve got probably got seven or eight guys who have kicked more than 20 goals.”

The figure is seven – Tyson Findlay (51), Sean Morris (46), Darcy Richards (42), Christopher (39), Mills (35), Knight (25) and skipper Jarrod Findlay (24), who was a shock inclusion on Thursday night after his season was feared over with a shoulder injury.

All seven players have kicked at least five goals in a game, with Tyson Findlay (four), Morris (three) and Christopher (three) having done so multiple times.

“We’ve got a number of players who can get off the chain and that has been our biggest asset,” said Dillon, who is coaching in his first grand final.

The Bulldogs made a shaky start to the season when they were 1-2 after three rounds, with losses to two of the touted leading contenders in the Bombers and Huntly.

“We’d undergone quite a bit of a change from the grand final side last year with probably up to 10 different players in our team for the first game,” Dillon said.

“I guess there was also that little bit of doubt as well when a side has been up for so long and a lot of new players coming in that it could go either way, but I was always confident our best footy would come at the end of the year.”

From a 1-2 start the Bulldogs ended the home and away season 14-2 off the back of 13 wins in a row to secure their third top-of-the-ladder finish in the past five years.

“The group really dug in, has gelled well and is playing for each other,” Dillon said.

“The playing group has a real passion and will to win… they are a very proud bunch of blokes, who push each other really hard and you can see the success they’ve had in recent years really has players hungry to be part of the side.

“The group has been really accepting of me and they are a very professional bunch of players who are willing to sacrifice their own games for the betterment of the team.”

North Bendigo’s grand final side of 22 features 15 players who played in either the club’s 2015 or 2016 premiership teams – Tom Metherell (both), Ryan Alford (both), Callum Tardrew (2016), Daniel Morris (2016), Aarryn Craig (both), Mills (2015), former skipper Jordan Ford (both), Tyson Findlay (both), Richards (both), Jarrod Findlay (2016), Kelm (2015), Sean Morris (both), Ryan Gow (2016), Storm Giri (2016) and Blayne Ryan-Storey (2016).

North Bendigo

B: T. Metherell, R. Alford, C. Tardrew

HB: D. Morris, B. Thomson, A. Craig

C: T.  Devereaux, J.  Mills, J.  Ford

HF: T. Findlay, D. Richards, Z. Alford

F: B. Knight, S. Christopher, J. Findlay

R: T. Kelm, S. Morris, M. Thalasinos

Int: R. Gow, W. Brohm, S. Giri, B. Ryan-Storey, B. Robertson

In: C. Tardrew, J. Findlay

Out: R. Threlfall

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