Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
A decade on from his starring role in one of the AFL’s great premierships, Tom Boyd is urging the Western Bulldogs to again ride their momentum.
The Bulldogs will play the league’s first wildcard final on Friday night when they take on Collingwood at the MCG.
With his club coming off last weekend’s upset win over Melbourne, Boyd says the Dogs can use that as a springboard for the next few weeks.
“The most important thing when you go into a final series and you are in that bottom bracket, is building some momentum,” Boyd told AAP
“The Dogs have had a great win against quite a substantial side. They’ve put themselves in a position to play Collingwood, who have been pretty hot and cold.
“And you go ‘one win leads to another, leads to another’, and this is where you start to generate the momentum.
“In reality, this year it’s a long road for the Dogs, but this wildcard round allows you to get a head start on some of the other teams.”
In 2016, the Bulldogs became the first team to win the flag from seventh place, with their run of four-straight finals wins.
They had battled significant injuries – captain Bob Murphy was out for the most of the season with a knee reconstruction – and Boyd said they were in “a bit of disarray”.
But they peaked when it counted, making the most of the pre-finals bye and storming through September.
Boyd was one of the heroes and the key forward’s booming last-quarter goal in the grand final win over Sydney is a cherished moment in Bulldogs’ history.
The No.1 draft pick retired three years later aged just 23 and he is now a prominent advocate for mental health.
“It’s actually reflective of my life as a whole, how you grow as a person and mature,” Boyd said of 2016 and the joy it has given the club as he reflected at the launch of the AFL finals series.
“I’d just turned 21 when that happened. I probably thought, ‘yes, that moment was for the club’, but it was a lot for me.
“Ten years on, you realise it was about everyone else. I really mean it in the sense that the Bulldogs fans are such incredible people.”
Boyd expects two-time defending premiers Brisbane to be at the pointy end of the season again and he is backing his old Bulldogs’ teammate Josh Dunkley to win the Norm Smith Medal for best afield in the grand final.
Dunkley made his debut in 2016 at the Bulldogs and played in the premiership. He moved to Brisbane after the 2022 season and the midfielder, now a co-captain, continues to enhance his reputation as a big-game performer.
“For those people who haven’t met Josh – he’s the nicest, kindest, softest bloke in the world,” Boyd said.
“But on the field, he’s an animal … so competitive.
“He just says, ‘stand up, gentlemen’, such dedication to his craft.”
Boyd wants to see the Bulldogs win a couple of finals, having not done so since losing the 2021 grand final to Melbourne during COVID-19.
“The Doggies have been in this weird, no-man’s land for five or six seasons,” he said.
“Obviously making the ‘COVID Cup’ grand final against Melbourne was outstanding. But the last few years have been that really weird ‘was it good or bad?'”
