The Good Vibes Economy

Being good is nice. Being fun is better.

I’ll level with you, honest reader.

At about 6pm yesterday evening, I was all ready to focus on the Cronulla Sharks for this week’s newsletter. A bonkers team in their own right with scintillating attack and defence flimsier than a ninth grader when asked why they didn’t do their history essay.

And then the Bulldogs ate the Cowboys homework, and here we are.

Anyone that knows me knows I like to promote good vibes over everything, especially when it comes to talking about footy, so it would be remiss of me to not focus my attention this week on the unstoppable vibe train barrelling down the T3 Bankstown line, express service to Belmore.

The Bulldogs came into the 2023 season as the popular pick to be the default team that breaks into the top eight from outside the year prior. It was easy to see the reasons for optimism too. One of the most heralded head coaching prospects coming off an elite apprenticeship with the back to back defending premiers, bringing with him a strike back rower and reuniting with his star five-eighth.

Add a top hooker who in another era would probably play twenty Origins if it weren’t for some guy called Harry Grant, and who can blame Dogs fans for feeling themselves.

I always thought the Bulldogs were building for 2024 to be their grand climb rather than this year. Stephen Crichton is coming in to presumably take over the fullback jersey from current placeholder Hayze Perham, while there’s still questions over Matt Burton’s long term halves partner (although Karl Oloapu might displace Kyle Flanagan sooner rather than later).

Still, that didn’t mean I thought the Bulldogs would be poor this year. I did think they’d scrap for the lower half of the top eight. The issue at the moment has been injuries.

Currently, the Bulldogs can barely scrape together enough forwards to name a side. Luke Thompson and Tevita Pangai Junior haven’t played all year, Viliame Kikau is in concussion protocol after a training mishap, while the fallout from last night’s electric win over North Queensland means Raymond Faitala-Mariner will miss the mandatory 11 days after failing a HIA, Franklin Pele even longer after reportedly suffering a fractured forearm, and there’s no telling the extent of Max King’s facial injury.

Worst episode of M*A*S*H* ever.

Yet, the Bulldogs, much like the community they represent, are a vibrant melting pot of carefree enthusiasm, confidence and reckless abandon, yet steely defiance and a sheer refusal to admit defeat.

Anyone who has wandered the streets of Bulldogs territory knows what I’m talking about. A proud community bonded by love and steeped in multiculturalism, bearing the brunt of unfair sneering from privileged, yet ignorant, outsiders.

“Bankstown? Are you lost?”

People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer.

Andrew Smith

In a way, as much as none of them would care to admit it, it is that vibrancy and expression of culture that bonds all four western Sydney clubs together. It’s the pilgrims march down Balmain Road to Leichhardt Oval. It’s the blue and white wall and banging drums on the hill at Belmore. It’s the dong of the bell and the roar of the panther at Penrith. It’s the echo of Sivo roaring around CommBank.

Too often the Bulldogs have been told they won’t amount to much. After going through the desolate years of Trent Barrett, hitting rock bottom and being the laughing stock of the league, the expectation from outside was that this franchise wouldn’t amount to much in the near future.

Tell someone they’re nothing enough times and they’ll eventually believe it.

Guess nobody told that to these Dogs.

The vibes in this Canterbury side right now are, to be honest, immaculate. Off the charts. The vibrations are so good Brian Wilson is blushing.

Take Jacob Preston for example. #PrestonMania has absolutely cascaded over social media. A Manly area junior signed by the Roosters, the Bulldogs plucked him from obscurity out of the Roosters’ Jersey Flegg sides with the promise of first grade opportunities.

The mulleted sensation has not disappointed, cracking 100 running metres in three of his first five NRL games while also getting through a fair swathe of defensive workload, combining production on the ball with substance in the effort areas, a rare yet endearing quality for the modern day edge forward.

Oh and you can add in three tries to boot.

Or what about Matt Burton? The lanky headgeared country star, shoved into the centres by a premiership juggernaut before finally afforded the chance to lead his own team. It’s easy to forget that, before he turned 23, Burton had already won a Premiership and appeared for both his state and his country. A glittering resume most would kill for.

Burton is, as most young halves are, especially on teams finding their identity, inconsistent. The weight of expectation will always be present as the anointed one for a rebuilding club, but the reduction in which his game is spoken about is puzzling bordering on disingenuous.

I’m not sure there are many other sports out there actively pimping out their stars to rival codes. The NFL punting comments last year were mostly tongue in cheek, I know, but that didn’t stop me wanting to throw my chair through my TV. Burton is so much more than “big kick go brrt.”

What I like about Burton the most, and fitting the theme of this newsletter, is his willingness and propensity to (sorry if you’re reading Mum) try shit. Cool shit.

Stranded in your own 30? Crossfield punt for Josh Addo-Carr to hare on to.

Game ticking down and trapped on the sideline? How about a short side chip and chase.

Golden point against a top four side from last year? How about a sideline drop goal in golden point in the miserable rain to send the hardcore punters into delirium.

All the great five eighth’s of our game, the Munsters, the Luais, the Walkers, are known for their unpredictability bordering on insanity. With a turbo boost most video game characters would be proud of, and a howitzer of a left boot, nothing is outside the realms of possibility for Burton.

Preston and Burton are part of this new wave of Bulldogs, but they’re outside recruits. Look, there’s nothing wrong with buying players. Winning a competition and sustaining success through entirely internal means is a pipe dream to most.

But still, there’s something magical about one of your own, someone you shared the hill with as a fan, someone who spent their childhood years riding every try, every hit, every dropped ball, the highs of 2004 to the heartbreak ten years later.

Enter the Big Wahash, Jacob Kiraz, steaming down the wing. An early leader of the Dally M count, the NRL’s leading metre eater is shattering the competition, over 150 metres ahead of Seb Kris and Dylan Edwards, while also leading the league in offloads and total runs, and third in tackle breaks.

But Kiraz means so much more to the Bulldogs faithful than simply being an absolute unit on the wing.

A Berala Bears junior, passing through the famed club that has produced other current stars like Api Koroisau, Tevita Tatola, Haumole Olakau’atu, Daniel Tupou and Sunia Turuva, Kiraz has gone on somewhat of a prodigal son arc, leaving the Bulldogs for Townsville and then the Knights before returning in 2022.

Kiraz provides representation to a Bulldogs fanbase that was desperately yearning for some form of identity after a tough few seasons. To see a local junior starring in the team and garnering national recognition, it drives the next generation.

Representation provides pathways, and inspiration. Pretty soon there’s going to be little kids running around school ovals in Bankstown yelling “Kiraz!” as they barrel over their unsuspecting classmates before launching into a swan dive into the imaginary corner, the ring of 20,000 feral Belmore locals ringing in their minds.

And just in case Kiraz wasn’t enough, the Bulldogs then had to go and bring back the grubbiest one of all.

Josh Reynolds might not be even 50% of the player he was when he was leading the Bulldogs to two Grand Finals and running around for New South Wales, and that’s ok. Being elevated from a train and trial deal to a top 30 spot on the eve of the season is not a precursor to massive expectations.

Most people, myself included, laughed at the news when it was publicised.

“Josh Reynolds? He was done two years ago. He left the Tigers for the Super League. That’s the path trodden by people on the downswing of their careers. Why are the Bulldogs granting charity for him?”

Remember that Andrew Smith quote above?

People laughed because, to them, it was inconsequential.

People sneered because, to them, it was classic incompetence. After all, we all laughed at the Tigers for bringing back the old boys in a desperate attempt to cling to the last vestiges of a bygone halcyon era.

But we laughed because we didn’t understand, and you only had to see the social media reactions from Bulldogs fans to realise that.

Joyous seems too weak a word to describe the outpouring of positive emotion surrounding Reynolds’ return. Unbridled elation is probably closer to the mark, and yet it still feels diminishing.

The Bulldogs might not end up being serious competitors in the back end of the season. Maybe all these injuries catch up to them. Maybe their uncertainty in the spine costs them some cheap wins.

But what you can bank on is the Bulldogs will do it all with fearless braggadocio. Brash and uncompromising, no stone unturned.

You might not understand it.

You might not like it.

But you can’t control it.

This team is all in on vibes, and the boom is coming.