THE new Bulldogs board took initial steps towards club reconciliation, addressing players and staff for the first time at Belmore and drawing a “line in the sand to move forward.”
Led by chairman George Peponis, the club hierarchy spoke with players and staff about moving on from a spiteful election.
Peter Cassilles and newly elected board member Andrew Farrar were the only absentees from the meet and greet.
Aside from Farrar all members of the successful rival ticket - Paul Dunn, Barry Ward, Anthony Elias and Ray Dib - were present, some meeting the players for the first time.
Club captain Andrew Ryan said he was relieved the political turbulence at the Bulldogs was finally coming to an end and the focus could return to football.
While the boardroom upheaval has dominated newspapers, Ryan said the drama had absolutely no affect on the players.
"Everyone has been talking about how much of a crisis the club is in but it doesn’t affect the players at all," he said.
"Most clubs would not even see the board members or anything like that, so it doesn’t affect us.
"It hasn’t been spoken about a great deal … if any of the guys had any problems with it they’d come up and say something but the way they’ve been training it certainly hasn’t been affecting the squad.
"We just want it to be all done with in the media and move on with it.
"I guess (the board came down) because they just want to show their faces around and meet some of the young guys and I guess the main thing for us is that they’re going to support us and that’s all we need to hear."
There is speculation the new board would move to sack club CEO Malcolm Noad, while coach Steve Folkes is also under growing pressure to retain his position with his contract to expire at the end of the year.
Ryan said none of the off-field rumours and innuendo had impacted on what the players were preparing to achieve in 2008, and the speculation over sweeping changes was out of the playing group’s control.
"Nothing is going to change here (at training)," he said.
"We have our squad and we have our coaching staff for the whole year so everything else is out of our hands so there’s no point stewing over it or anything like that.
"Obviously we don’t want to see the club being dragged through the media every day, but hopefully that’s over and done with now."
The Bulldogs will get a chance to fully move on from the political unrest when football becomes the focus this weekend in a pre-season trial against St George Illawarra at WIN Stadium.
AAP
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