1) This isn’t really a review about Little Creatures’ Dog Days – even though it is a tasty summer beer that is now in cans. If you want to read something more “reviewy” you can check out what I wrote about it last year.

2) This is more about Saturday afternoon, which I’m hoping will be a Dog Day. A Western Bulldog day. For they’re the team I want to see win the AFL grand final. I might live far closer to the home territory of their rivals the Sydney Swans, but it’s the Doggies I’ll be cheering for.

3) While I’m far from the most ardent Dogs fan, I’m not exactly a bandwagon-jumper either. I’d gotten behind the Western Bulldogs back in 1998 and while I couldn’t name more than a few players and hardly watched a game in the last few years (okay, the last decade), I will always have a soft spot for the Dogs. They will always be my team. Even when I don’t pay that much attention to them unless they’re in the grand final.

4) Even though I’m in NSW, I played Aussie rules for a decade – from 1998-2007. I played for the Port Kembla Blacks, mainly in reserve grade. I won a flag in 1999 and captained the side for a few seasons. It was because of the Blacks that I found the Dogs. When I decided to play I figured I should find an AFL team to support. Serendipity had me travel to Sydney for a movie day with a few friends and one of those movies we saw was Year of the Dogs, the documentary about the 1997 season, when the troubled Footscray club rebranded itself as the Western Bulldogs. The underdog spirit shown in the doco struck a chord in me and I knew I’d found my team.

5) I’m not the biggest student of AFL history but I know enough to know it’s been ages since the Dogs have made a grand final. It’s been even longer since they’ve won one. And more recently there were the years in the 1990s when they reached the preliminary final only to lose. But this year, they’re in the big one and, from what I saw last weekend (admittedly, the first Dogs game I’ve watched all season), the Dogs are in with a red-hot chance. They don’t give up, they never think the game’s lost and, in a tight prelim final they kept their cool when the pressure was on. If I were the Swans, I’d be a bit nervous about this Saturday.

Free or paid for: This was one of two free cans from Little Creatures. But I’ll be looking to buy some more to drink during Saturday’s game.