'Why not us' says Eaton at helm of new-look Golden Square in BFNL

But whatever pressure there may seemingly be on Eaton given the circumstances in which he has found himself leading the Bulldogs into 2024, the man himself says that pressure will be no greater than what he applies to himself in the role.

It's hard to recall in modern times a more controversial coaching change in the BFNL than the one that took place at Golden Square in October last year.

Just over a month after coaching the Bulldogs to the 2023 premiership - and completing a 19-2 season - Golden Square sacked club legend Christian Carter.

It was a shock decision that reverberated well beyond Bendigo in its coverage and is one of the elements of what has been enormous upheaval at Wade Street post the grand final victory against arch-rival Sandhurst, which has also included the exodus of almost half the premiership team, plus a change at committee level with a new president Andrew Wicking now at the helm after Ian Symons stood down.

In the middle of what has been seismic change at Golden Square - a club whose constant stability has been a backbone of remaining a force in the BFNL for as long as it has - Eaton has the responsibility of leading what will be a vastly different Bulldogs senior side this year.

Eaton was a member of Carter's premiership-winning coaching group last year as an assistant, while he also coached the Bulldogs' reserves.

While Eaton's focus is now firmly on this year and driving the Bulldogs to remain a flag contender, he certainly acknowledges the unique situation he has inherited in being appointed to replace a sacked reigning premiership coach.

"From an outside perspective it didn't look great. It was a unique situation that in hindsight the club would have handled a lot differently," Eaton said this week.

"It wasn't ideal and took away from the efforts of the club and people involved to reach the ultimate goal of the premiership success, which was the culmination of a few years with Christian and prior to that also with a lot of the playing group having been together before that.

"It felt like 2022 (two-point preliminary final defeat) was an opportunity lost, so to work through and build on that last year... I thought from a club point of view we had great leadership and support and achieved the ultimate success, which was great.

"Myself included, a lot of people were blindsided with what eventuated in the end.

"Ideally, there would have been a bit better communication throughout the season and the process.

"We've obviously had a fairly high turnover of quality players including some guys who have been at the club for a while, which may have happened either way.

"I didn't have any intention initially to coach. I was perfectly comfortable coaching the reserves and helping out Christian again.

"I thought we had a really good group of coaches who worked well together and complemented each other with our skill sets and got the best out of the playing group.

"I think we really improved as a playing and coaching group as the season went on after a couple of hiccups early in the year."

The Bulldogs split their first four games 2-2 last year, but wouldn't lose again for the rest of the season, with the 10.11 (71) to 9.11 (65) victory over Sandhurst in the grand final the side's 17th win in a row.

What the Bulldogs achieved last year under Carter certainly creates lofty expectations for Eaton to try to live up to, but he says the most pressure he feels going into this season is what he places upon himself.

"If I listen to everything that was said externally you just wouldn't do it," Eaton said.

"The most pressure I feel is the pressure I put on myself and the responsibility I have to invest in and get the best out of our players. I don't have ambitions to coach for the next five of 10 years; I'm here to try to make sure there's no gap in the success and development of the players we've got.

"We've got some great junior coaches and kids who are coming through who now have an opportunity.

"The quality and standard of the league has unfortunately been dwindling away over the past five to 10 years, but I think it's still a premier standard of football and our young guys have the capability to perform at that level.

"Every coach sits down at this time of the year and looks at their squad and the opposition and where do I think we sit in comparison and what's our expectation?

"There's probably six or seven coaches now thinking 'why not us this year'. They are going to hand out a cup in September, so why not us?

"There's probably less pressure because last year and the year before we had the expectation that we had the cattle (to win the flag) and the players felt that as well, so it was a bit of a monkey off the back winning it last year and a lot of relief.

"It was a great reward for the effort, whereas this year if you listen to everyone else it's like Square is done, they have lost all their sponsors, they have lost their committee, they have lost all their players, no need to worry about them.

"I'm just looking forward to the first bounce... I wish it was starting tomorrow.

"My role as coach is purely focused on the players, supporting them and giving them 100 per cent all the time to make them better."

The Golden Square team that takes to the field in round one on April 13 against Eaglehawk at Canterbury Park will barely resemble the 2023 premiership side.

Of the 22 that won last year's flag - the 18th in Golden Square's history - 10 players have departed: in alphabetical order they are Braydon Vaz, Hamish Morcom, captain Jack Geary, Jake Thrum, Joel Brett, Liam Barrett, Liam Duguid, Matt Comspton, Ryan Hartley and Zavier Murley.

Bulldogs' young gun midfielder Ricky Monti has also been offered a contract from Essendon's VFL side this year.

Highlighting the large chunk of experience and leadership the Bulldogs have lost from last year, three of the departed players have taken on senior coaching roles - club legend Geary at the Cohuna Kangas, Morcom at Huntly and Thrum at Irymple.

And Barrett, who kicked three last-quarter goals in the grand final, is an assistant coach at Moama.

"Some guys have gone on to coach and test themselves elsewhere and maybe if things were handled differently some of those guys may have looked to take up the opportunity to coach (at Square), or maybe not and that it was perhaps in their best interests to move on and see if they enjoy it and then potentially come back in the future," said Eaton, who is a premiership coach with Irymple in the Sunraysia league.

"As a club now we've just got to look forward; we've had fantastic numbers on the track, we've got 55 players on our list and a large amount of young guys who have come through the past three years.

"Fortunately, I've been involved in some junior roles to see those kids coming through and have a bit of an understanding of what they're about.

"I think it's really positive to have 10 or 12 under-18s from last year stay around and with the turnover of players they will get an opportunity, whereas last year we basically had nil turnover, brought in Tommy Toma and didn't have many injuries.

"There's guys who have probably been starved a bit of opportunities for no other reason than we've had a really strong list.

"With the turnover comes opportunity and I've got faith in the young guys that we have on our list to be able to step up and fill those voids.

"We've brought in some new players and you could make a case for probably six or seven guys who could have come in and played a role over the course of last year.

"In a good year most clubs will have 32-35 players they need to call on during the year. The past couple of years we haven't needed that many as we've had a really stable senior core list, so there's opportunity there."

While there's a large void of premiership-calibre players to cover at Golden Square, Eaton is preferring to develop from within rather than recruit heavily.

The Bulldogs have welcomed two new players (Kai Daniels and Luke Holt) and two returning players (Kyle Stevens and Jordan Rosengren) to the club.

"Kai is coming back to footy after having a lot of time off," Eaton said of Daniels, the older brother of New Orleans NBA basketballer Dyson Daniels.

"Kai is very raw, but there's not many six-foot-four guys with the athleticism he has got. He could roll in and play every position, but it's going to take time. He's naturally gifted, so it's a matter of refining that. His ceiling is probably above everyone else's, but he is still in the infancy in terms of his development."

Stevens rejoins the Bulldogs after playing last year with Merbein, while in 2022 he played in Birchip-Watchem's drought-breaking North Central league flag.

"Kyle is a really good ball-user. He is probably one who can fill that role that Thrummy played as a running half-back... using the footy and setting us up behind the ball," Eaton said.

"From what we've lost in terms of having Gears and Thrummy in the back half and their running capacity and ability to make a decision with the ball, all teams generally have one or two players who do that, so Kyle will be really important."

Rosengren heads back to Golden Square after a stint with Wedderburn, with Holt also joining the Bulldogs from the Redbacks.

"Jordan won a best and fairest up at Wedderburn... he's a big bodied mid, so it will be about managing his time between midfield and forward half minutes," Eaton said.

"He's a natural forward from his junior days, but he definitely has the size to be able to help us around the footy.

"Holty is a hard worker and doesn't mind where he plays. He hasn't missed a beat at training and he's in the top running group... he could be a tagger, he could play back or forward.

"With the dynamic of our list we're going to need guys to be flexible and play multiple positions.

"We've got quite a few guys who are going to need to be hybrid in terms of playing up around the ball, pinch hitting forward and rolling back as well.

"I think we need to have some unpredictability about what we do. We've lost 90 goals with Snowy (Joel Brett), so we need to make sure we invest in our young guys.

"I look at our side on paper and I'm confident we can compete every week and be in it right up to our necks, but we need to make sure we put the work in."

One of the key pillars the Bulldogs need to replace is the veteran ruckman who Eaton dubbed Mr Reliable - Matt Compston - a stalwart of more than 200 senior games and three premierships for the club.

"We've got a group of young guys who could play in that role," Eaton said.

"Tanner Rayner came in for a few games last year; Rory McRann-Peters out of thirds is really aggressive; Hugh Freckleton is only still young as well and Ned Hayes from Strathfieldsaye is a bit of a project player.

"We're trying to get a group of young talls together and invest time into them and get Compo back every now and then to show them the ropes."

And as for the filling the big shoes of taking over as skipper from the revered Geary, it's a job for two men with reigning best and fairest Tom Toma and key position swingman Jayden Burke appointed co-captains.