'IF IT ain't broke, don't fix it' seems to be something good teams subconsciously embrace as a result of their success.
During the Brisbane Lions' rein during the early 2000s, the Lions sparingly introduced new players. Changes were made more out of necessity because of injury or suspension rather than wanting to blood new players.
In 2001, the Lions introduced five new players: Jamie Charman, Ashley McGrath, Richard Hadley, Robert Copeland and Dylan McLaren.
The following year only Shane Morrison and Darren Bradshaw debuted and in 2003 Jason Gram, Luke Weller and Jared Brennan made their first appearances.
The Lions' dominance ended in 2004, losing to Port Adelaide in the Grand Final and the wheels finally fell off when they slipped to 11th in 2005 and 13th in 2006.
Three premierships and four Grand finals is a compelling case but even when a club is successful, it's important new faces are introduced.
The approach of the Lions was short-sighted in the sense that they were totally fixated on winning as many premierships as they possibly could and you'd be hard pressed to argue against that.
But because they kept going back to the well with a relatively unchanged line up during this period, when the wheels did finally fall off, they fell off in a big way because they hadn't exposed enough younger players during this period to fill the void once older players moved on.
The Western Bulldogs have followed a similar path to the Brisbane Lions, albeit without the premiership success.
Preliminary finalists in the past three years, the Bulldogs have mirrored what Brisbane did.
In 2009 Brennan Stack, Easton Wood, Jarrad Grant and Liam Picken debuted. In 2010 only three Bulldogs made their first appearance: Andrew Hooper, Liam Jones and Jordan Roughead.
So far in 2011, eight players have debuted. Tom Liberatore, Mitch Wallis, Christian Howard, Luke Dahlhaus, Lukas Markovic, Jayden Schofield, James Mulligan and Zephaniah Skinner have been introduced to the side.
Liberatore, Wallis and Dahlhaus are natural inclusions picked on form whereas others like Markovic and Mulligan were brought in more out of necessity due to injury and the form of key defenders like Brian Lake and Ryan Hargrave.
Had the Bulldogs not lost their way this year, I'd argue there wouldn't have been so many players appearing for the first time. Their decisions in the off-season would support this.
Justin Sherman, Nathan Djerrkura and Patrick Vespremi were brought into the group for their leg speed and goal kicking.
Clearly, the Bulldogs believed their window was still open but they felt it was necessary to top up the list with recycled players like Sherman, Djerrkura and Vespremi.
In the last three years, the Bulldogs have made twenty changes to their list including ten at end of last year. This amounts to 1901 games and 1855 goals worth of experience.
It's impossible to replace this lost experience and ability but it's made even harder when teams like the Bulldogs, Lions and even St Kilda don't consciously make a decision to introduce new players when the team is performing well.
During the same period, Collingwood have made 24 list changes with a staggering 11 changes coming at the end of last year's premiership.
There's a valuable lesson in Collingwood's example.
Even though they are the reigning premier, in order for them to find further improvement, the Pies recognised the need to bring in new players along with some recycled players in Chris Tarrant and Andrew Krakouer.
The Bulldogs can rebound but it will take time.
Liberatore, Wallis, Dahlhaus, Schofield, Markovic, Howard along with Wood, Grant, Roughead and Jones need to be given as many games as quickly as possible, even if that's at the expense of more experienced players.
Developing these players is the number one priority at the Bulldogs. It's vital these players are fast tracked to 50 games as soon as possible.
A by-product of this strategy will be that older players miss out.
The Bulldogs don't have to look far again to see what's possible. Collingwood made some tough calls last year so that the next generation of players was given ample opportunity to continue to develop and mature.
John Anthony, Josh Fraser, Paul Medhurst, Shane O'Bree and Tarkyn Lockyer made way for the likes of Jarryd Blair, Ben Reid, Dayne Beams, Steele Sidebottom, Sharrod Wellingham and Brent Macaffer.
The Magpies held their ground last year when it would have been easy to go back to the well with their older players. The decision to help speed development and improvement in their younger players was paramount and there was no room for sentiment.
In hindsight, the Bulldogs may have erred by allowing Scott West, Jason Akermanis, Nathan Eagleton and Mitch Hahn to go another year. All four made valuable contributions but by playing an extra year, it meant the club wasn't able to invest early games into their younger players.
The Bulldogs missed a chance to open up new opportunities for fresh talent. Admittedly, telling older players their time is up is never easy but there are times when clubs must make tough calls just like the Pies did at the end of last year.
Rodney Eade is out of contract at the end of the season. Three consecutive preliminary finals is an outstanding achievement and as difficult as this year has been for the experienced coach, I firmly believe he is the right man for the job again.
He has displayed an ability to extract everything out of the teams he's coached, taking the Sydney Swans to a Grand Final in his first year in charge and competing in five finals series in seven years in Sydney.
Now into his seventh year at the Bulldogs, he has only missed the finals once, back in 2007. In his thirteen years as a senior coach, Rocket has had his team in nine finals series. Not a bad record without the ultimate prize.
With the new breed of Bulldogs showing promising signs, the club should move to re-sign Eade for another three years so that he can weave his magic again and return the Western Bulldogs to the top of the ladder.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs
