The 2013 team didn’t feel like the beginning of something, I reckon that’s a big difference. Wayne was supposed to come and turn us into the 2009-11 Dragons, grinding team full of tough vets. Couldn’t get us there consistently and there wasn’t some obvious exciting future on the horizon given how old a lot of those players were besides Gagai.
Obviously a couple of old warhorses have been important to this run, but the best player vs Souths is 21, our starting prop who’s been absolutely huge is still only 20, our best player and captain is just hitting his prime now… so many tomorrows for a lot of these players, so many of them locked down long term.
And there’s just something about a lot of these guys that makes you believe. It feels different because it is. Doesn’t hurt that, no disrespect to past players, we didn’t have many guys in that team (besides a very old Bedsy) who felt like a *special* player, a potential all time great, like Kalyn, Fletcher et al do.