Apart from the obvious development opportunities of fielding a standalone side, VFL coach Chris Maple says exposing young players to a winning culture will provide significant benefits down the track.

While the win-loss ratio is not the only gauge of success for the VFL team, their current standing on the ladder (second) and onfield dominance indicates the depth of talent in the side.

“Our main focus is the development of the person and the development of the player in that they are playing how we want them and they are playing the Bulldogs way,” Maple said.

“But obviously we want to develop competitive beasts who, come game day, play to win and that’s an important part of their development.

“But we will still focus on development with regards to picking the side and the positions they play and how long they play for – we won’t move from that.”

After 16 rounds, a finals berth looks promising for Footscray and Maple said exposing players to such a high-pressure environment would better prepare them for the step up to senior football.

“When you get to play against other AFL listed players in say a finals series, it will be the closest thing we will get to replicating an AFL game,” he said.

‘We want to see how people react to that pressure, how they perform – it will be a really good experience for all of them.”

The benefits of the VFL side are beginning to show with the AFL-listed players transitioning into the AFL team with ease, including names such as Marcus Bontempelli and Mitch Honeychurch.

“The main purpose of having our own standalone side was to develop our AFL talent, the next one was to develop our VFL talent and we are seeing particularly our younger boys really quickly developing,” he said.