Been thinking about how the bulldogs blew up their halves in preparation for the future and the potential for Mitch Woods to start the season for them and the direction we might look to go in. It took 1 game of nsw cup in 2016 for panthers to lock in Nathan Cleary as their future and he played first grade from there after as an 18 year old, he’s 27 now and you forget how long he’s been around. It didn’t happen overnight with Nathan and they needed to bring a proven winner in Maloney later to get the panthers to where they wanted to be but Cleary got his opportunity to develop in first grade.
Jett obviously isn’t his brother and there probably won’t be another player like Nathan in a long time, but
Jett is potentially further ahead than Woods at bulldogs too only having 6 nsw cup appearances to his name. Linnane signed for the longest out of the halves, with confirmation yet to come on
Metcalf’s future past 2026. Do we look to prepare too for 2026?