This was published 9 years ago
Luke Dahlhaus signs up for Western Bulldogs' red, white and blue vision
By Peter Hanlon
At his club's season launch on Tuesday night, Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon put a red, white and blue spin on an off-season most would colour as deep purple, descending into black.
A new coach who Gordon thinks will be one of the greats, a captain who wants the job and understands the honour it bestows, 11 recruits who will be around for a decade (a feat of mass longevity history says is impossible), a summer spruce-up that's left Whitten Oval boasting upgraded change rooms and coaches' boxes. Soon there will be lights, too.
A committed Bulldog: Luke Dahlhaus.Credit: Pat Scala
Such markers are hard for fans to quantify; it is unlikely the Bulldogs faithful will be dancing a jig at the news five sports scientists are now embedded at the club.
They will take far greater heart and hope from the news Luke Dahlhaus has signed a new contract that ensures he will remain a Bulldog until at least the end of 2018.
The 22-year-old, who finds himself an elder among the heralded group of young Dogs, thinks the time frame is irrelevant.
When Fairfax interviewed Dahlhaus three years ago, he was an 11-gamer starting his second season in the wake of Callan Ward jumping ship to Greater Western Sydney.
Asked what he would say to fans fretting that he might do the same, Dahlhaus said: "I'd tell them I'm never leaving. I want to be a one-club man, always will."
Sixty games and a haircut later, and with three more big names freshly departed too, his resolve has only hardened.
"It's even stronger now. When the offer came up to sign again I just jumped straight on it. It's one of the proudest moments of my life to sign now and get it done so I can just relax and play footy. That's the person I am – I want to be loyal and be a one-club person. I'm rapt."
Simon Dalrymple will not be allowed to forget that his first draft-day act as the Bulldogs' recruiter was to take Christian Howard at pick 15, a left-field punt that ended in October with Howard's delisting after 20 games over five seasons.
Dahlhaus leaps off Dalrymple's CV as a striking counterweight, an unwanted Geelong Falcon taken in the 2011 rookie draft.
"The Bulldogs were the only ones who wanted to give me a chance, and I just want to repay their faith," Dahlhaus says. "That's why I never want to leave. Every time I go out on the ground I just want to repay them as much as I can."
Dahlhaus has finished fourth and sixth in the past two Charles Sutton Medal counts, and in the eyes of list manager Jason McCartney has made every post a winner.
"He's been that small, pressure forward who plays with a lot of energy, but we've seen in NAB games he's playing higher, in different roles," McCartney says.
"He's still learning. We think he's by no means reached his ceiling or his potential."
Adding a further three years to a contract that was to expire at the end of 2015 meets a club priority of locking away young talent before the clock ticks into the red.
Marcus Bontempelli is already secured until the end of 2017, with Jack Macrae and Jake Stringer signed to the end of 2016, with work under way to further bed them in.
"We've been really conscious to keep ahead of the game with the ones who are coming out, the ones you value," McCartney says. "Luke's an example of that."
Dahlhaus finds it "ridiculous" that he's in the most experienced half of a list that features just two 200-game players and three others who have passed 100.
Yet he is most content to see a spotlight that quickly zeroed in on his dreadlocked head broaden its arc to encompass others, particularly the much-hyped Bontempelli and Macrae.
His early "look" was deceptive; quiet and modest, Dahlhaus is no attention-seeker.
"It's amazing what a head of hair can do. I was the complete opposite of that and I think people got the wrong impression," he says, recalling some recruiters telling his manager he should lose the locks during his TAC Cup year because they cast him as an extrovert.
He is still the face of the "Dahlhaus Clubhouse" targeting young members, but could not be happier to no longer be unwittingly hogging the limelight.
"It was in my hands for a while, but those two are on another level. Some of the other kids coming through, like [Mitch] Honeychurch, [Nathan] Hrovat, [Lachie] Hunter, [Jake] Stringer ... I'm trying to keep it low-key, but I'm pretty excited."
It is another reason he is rapt to have signed – to be part of what this group could become.
He was saddened to see Tom Liberatore, one of his closest mates, go down for the season, but he embraces the knock-on of fast-tracking his evolution from energetic, pressure forward into a genuine on-baller who can hurt the opposition inside and with spread from stoppages, where he has made cleaner ball use a priority.
"Without him we can't do much else but share the load now ... last year it was probably just Libba doing all the dirty work. We're all going to have to chip in and play his role."
He feels himself maturing, rounding out. A carpentry apprenticeship – one day a week, hands on with the father of a mate from home, a half-day at trade school – has filled a void outside the game.
"I've finally found something, and I love it. I've got all the tools in the garage and I'm ready to go."
For now, the Bulldogs are not yet similarly equipped, but every young gun who commits to the cause is another building block.