Player passion. It’s something that I thought was dead and buried in the age of the sports mercenary but now and again you read an article that gives you hope that it’s not.
Big Willie has let loose with both barrels and though I may be skeptical of the timing as it could be construed as the perfect way to fire up the opposition and is also highly critical of (albeit deservedly) a fellow teammate but who gives a fuck.
I think it’s brilliant. A stroke of pure genius.
By Willie Mason
LOSING Nate Myles to Sydney Roosters on top of Roy Asotasi going to South Sydney has got me fuming. It's again a case of the Bulldogs paying for their success, and I don't think that's fair.
Let's start with Roy.
I moved to the Bulldogs in 1998, he arrived in 1999, and we have been great mates ever since. I played first grade before him but I have watched him develop into one of the best front rowers in the competition.
The Bulldogs have developed him to where he has been such a great player over the past couple of years. Now we can't afford to keep him. Yet the bottom sides like South Sydney, and those other clubs who aren't as successful, get to grab at our good players. It sucks.
Don't get me wrong.
Roy deserves the money he gets, but what can you say when a club like Souths offers you $450,000 a year and the Bulldogs can't afford to give him what he's worth.
The Rabbitohs have got all that money to spend because they've got players that are average first graders and not worth too much.
Like I said, good luck to him and I'm happy for him to go because he's got a family to look after.
But as I keep saying to him, he'd want to cherish this year because it will probably be the last finals series he plays until he retires. There's no way in the world Souths will go any good next year.
Nate's a different story and that ticks me off even more.
While I'm really upset that Roy did leave because we're great mates, he's done his time at the Dogs, he's been a great player for four or five years, and he deserves that money.
But I think Nate should have stayed because he needs to do his apprenticeship and he's gone and chased some money. You can come with excuses like you need a change or you need a starting spot but it comes down to the money.
I'd have loved to have been in his position, getting thrown $250,000 or $300,000 as a 21 year old, but I sacrificed that money to stay at the Bulldogs - and I haven't regretted it one bit.
I've won a premiership and it's made me the player I am today.
I wished Nate all the luck in the world because he is a good mate but I don't know if he is ready for the leadership role at the Roosters that comes with the responsibility of being a starting player.
The Roosters are going to put all that pressure on him by saying he's their No.1 buy and he's got to replace Adrian Morley. But Adrian Morley is irreplaceable.
He's one of the most intimidating players I have ever played against and it's a shame to lose him back to England. There's no other Adrian Morleys out there so I don't know what the Roosters are thinking with that.
It was the same for me when I was 21. I learned off players like Steve Price, Steve Reardon, Darren Britt and all those sort of older heads.
I sat behind those blokes, picked their brains, watched how they trained and that's probably made me the player I am. It's developed me into a leader. But I was no leader when I was 21 and I was in a better position than Nate was.
I don't know what can be done to help clubs like the Bulldogs retain their players. Probably raise the salary cap again? But to be honest there's probably nothing you can do.
It's a problem that won't go away. Sonny Bill Williams is off contract next year, so are Mark O'Meley and Daniel Holdsworth, there's a lot of them here at Belmore.
People are going to be throwing $600,000 or $700,000 at Sonny, $400,000 at Mark, Daniel Holdsworth has been playing some great football so he could be worth up to $300,000. It never ends.
That's just the price you pay for being successful.
Personally, I don't see what's wrong if a club wins a stack of premierships, just like the Dragons did in the 1960s.
There are not going to dynasties in the game now because the good teams just keep getting broken up every time you have a couple of good years. A couple of the good players come off contract and then they get bought.
We had an opportunity in the next four or five years to really establish ourselves in the NRL as the team that dominated the new millennium but we haven't got that chance now. Roy Asotasi was a real big part of that and so was Nate Myles and we've lost them both.
Turning to tomorrow night's clash against the Roosters, that's going to be a harder game than last Friday night's blockbuster against St George-Illawarra.
There's a confidence in the team after beating the Dragons last week that I last felt in 2004 when we won the premiership. But there's a lot of experienced players there now that know confidence isn't going to get you there.
You still have to work hard and you can't be mucking around. You've got to be switched on for every game and I think myself, Andrew Ryan, Tony Grimaldi and the rest of the senior players will be trying to drill that into everyone.
The Roosters will be tough because they've just come off a win, they're still a chance to make the eight and they're old rivals. They hate us and we hate them. If you play in a grand final and one team wins and one team loses there's always going to be rivalry.
We also need to beat them because they keep buying our players. Obviously they're trying to buy a premiership.
