Senior Coach Brendan McCartney is convinced that reward for effort is not too far away for his developing team.

Realistic of where the playing list is at, McCartney said the Club is working tirelessly to fast track the young side’s development and transfer their hard work out onto the field on match day. 

“It’s a game of scrutiny but we know what we do well here, we know what we have got to get better at, we keep showing the players almost daily, weekly, we keep practicing and rehearsing,” McCartney said.

“We know we’ve got to get better, we know we have got a fair way to go, we know exactly where we are at and not a day goes by where we don’t work our backsides to get better in those areas.”

More often than not the Bulldogs have won the hitouts, clearances and contested possession count against their opponents this season, but McCartney now wants to see players capitalising with ball in hand.

Drawing on his extensive experience in building strong teams from the ground up, McCartney is instilling a level of confidence in the young playing group to take the game on and back themselves in when the game gets tough.

“The time will come quite soon where we will start to get more reward for the hard work we are doing around the ball,” he said.

“That’s the challenge for our players, to actually take into games knowing that they have done it at training, they’ve seen it work, they know it can work, back yourselves in and be confident to do it when the game gets close and there’s pressure building.”